David Chalmers: The Hard Problem of Consciousness
哲学与宗教生物与进化物理与宇宙学音乐与艺术AI 与机器学习
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🔑 关键词
consciousnessconsciousdonuniverseviewexperiencegotbrainsimulationinterestingvirtualphysicalleastmeaningrealitysystemsrealsomehowdescartessimulate
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🎙️ 完整对话（2194 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with David Chalmers.
以下是与大卫·查默斯的对话。
Lex Fridman (00:02.920)
He's a philosopher and cognitive scientist
他是一位哲学家和认知科学家
Lex Fridman (00:05.360)
specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind,
专注于心灵哲学领域，
Lex Fridman (00:08.080)
philosophy of language, and consciousness.
语言哲学和意识。
Lex Fridman (00:11.040)
He's perhaps best known for formulating
他最出名的也许是制定
David Chalmers (00:13.320)
the hard problem of consciousness,
意识的难题，
Lex Fridman (00:15.160)
which could be stated as why does the feeling
这可以说是为什么这种感觉
David Chalmers (00:17.720)
which accompanies awareness of sensory information
伴随着感官信息的意识
Lex Fridman (00:20.160)
exist at all?
到底存在吗？
David Chalmers (00:22.720)
Consciousness is almost entirely a mystery.
意识几乎完全是一个谜。
Lex Fridman (00:25.520)
Many people who worry about AI safety and ethics
许多人担心人工智能的安全和道德
David Chalmers (00:28.640)
believe that, in some form, consciousness can
相信意识可以以某种形式
Lex Fridman (00:31.840)
and should be engineered into AI systems of the future.
并且应该被设计到未来的人工智能系统中。
Lex Fridman (00:35.480)
So while there's much mystery, disagreement,
因此，尽管存在很多谜团和分歧，
Lex Fridman (00:38.360)
discoveries yet to be made about consciousness,
关于意识还有待发现，
David Chalmers (00:40.920)
these conversations, while fundamentally philosophical
这些对话虽然基本上是哲学性的
Lex Fridman (00:44.360)
in nature, may nevertheless be very important
在本质上，但可能仍然非常重要
David Chalmers (00:47.200)
for engineers of modern AI systems to engage in.
供现代人工智能系统的工程师参与。
Lex Fridman (00:51.140)
This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.
这是人工智能播客。
David Chalmers (00:53.900)
If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube,
如果您喜欢，请在 YouTube 上订阅，
Lex Fridman (00:56.200)
give it five stars on Apple Podcast,
David Chalmers (00:58.000)
support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me
Lex Fridman (01:00.360)
on Twitter at Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D M A N.
David Chalmers (01:05.480)
As usual, I'll do one or two minutes of ads now
Lex Fridman (01:08.360)
and never any ads in the middle
David Chalmers (01:09.680)
that can break the flow of the conversation.
Lex Fridman (01:11.920)
I hope that works for you
Lex Fridman (01:13.240)
and doesn't hurt the listening experience.
Lex Fridman (01:15.600)
This show is presented by Cash App,
David Chalmers (01:17.560)
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Lex Fridman (01:19.840)
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David Chalmers (01:23.280)
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Lex Fridman (01:25.480)
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David Chalmers (01:27.920)
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Lex Fridman (01:29.880)
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David Chalmers (01:32.640)
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Lex Fridman (01:36.000)
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David Chalmers (01:38.320)
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Lex Fridman (01:40.880)
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David Chalmers (01:43.600)
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Lex Fridman (01:46.760)
So big props to the Cash App engineers
David Chalmers (01:49.200)
for solving a hard problem that, in the end,
Lex Fridman (01:51.640)
provides an easy interface that takes a step up
David Chalmers (01:54.240)
to the next layer of abstraction over the stock market,
Lex Fridman (01:57.120)
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Lex Fridman (01:59.960)
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Lex Fridman (02:02.800)
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Lex Fridman (02:05.160)
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Lex Fridman (02:08.840)
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David Chalmers (02:11.680)
one of my favorite organizations
Lex Fridman (02:13.480)
that is helping to advance robotics and STEM education
David Chalmers (02:16.680)
for young people around the world.
Lex Fridman (02:18.680)
And now, here's my conversation with David Chalmers.
Lex Fridman (02:23.160)
Do you think we're living in a simulation?
Lex Fridman (02:25.960)
I don't rule it out.
David Chalmers (02:27.440)
There's probably gonna be a lot of simulations
Lex Fridman (02:29.720)
in the history of the cosmos.
David Chalmers (02:32.200)
If the simulation is designed well enough,
Lex Fridman (02:34.720)
it'll be indistinguishable from a non simulated reality.
Lex Fridman (02:39.800)
And although we could keep searching for evidence
Lex Fridman (02:43.200)
that we're not in a simulation,
David Chalmers (02:46.000)
any of that evidence in principle could be simulated.
Lex Fridman (02:48.600)
So I think it's a possibility.
Lex Fridman (02:50.560)
But do you think the thought experiment is interesting
Lex Fridman (02:53.000)
or useful to calibrate how we think
Lex Fridman (02:56.480)
about the nature of reality?
Lex Fridman (02:58.720)
Yeah, I definitely think it's interesting and useful.
David Chalmers (03:01.000)
In fact, I'm actually writing a book about this right now,
Lex Fridman (03:03.640)
all about the simulation idea,
David Chalmers (03:05.960)
using it to shed light
Lex Fridman (03:07.160)
on a whole bunch of philosophical questions.
Lex Fridman (03:10.320)
So the big one is how do we know anything
Lex Fridman (03:13.120)
about the external world?
David Chalmers (03:15.520)
Descartes said, maybe you're being fooled by an evil demon
Lex Fridman (03:19.440)
who's stimulating your brain into thinking,
David Chalmers (03:21.840)
all this stuff is real when in fact, it's all made up.
Lex Fridman (03:25.840)
Well, the modern version of that is,
Lex Fridman (03:28.080)
how do you know you're not in a simulation?
Lex Fridman (03:30.840)
Then the thought is, if you're in a simulation,
David Chalmers (03:33.680)
none of this is real.
Lex Fridman (03:34.560)
So that's teaching you something about knowledge.
Lex Fridman (03:37.560)
How do you know about the external world?
Lex Fridman (03:39.440)
I think there's also really interesting questions
David Chalmers (03:41.080)
about the nature of reality right here.
Lex Fridman (03:43.840)
If we are in a simulation, is all this real?
Lex Fridman (03:46.840)
Is there really a table here?
Lex Fridman (03:48.120)
Is it really a microphone?
Lex Fridman (03:49.240)
Do I really have a body?
Lex Fridman (03:50.800)
The standard view would be, no, we don't.
David Chalmers (03:54.160)
None of this would be real.
Lex Fridman (03:55.560)
My view is actually that's wrong.
Lex Fridman (03:56.840)
And even if we are in a simulation, all of this is real.
Lex Fridman (03:59.360)
That's why I called this reality 2.0.
David Chalmers (04:01.400)
New version of reality, different version of reality,
Lex Fridman (04:04.120)
still reality.
Lex Fridman (04:05.400)
So what's the difference between quote unquote,
Lex Fridman (04:08.440)
real world and the world that we perceive?
Lex Fridman (04:12.520)
So we interact with the world by perceiving it.
Lex Fridman (04:17.160)
It only really exists through the window
David Chalmers (04:22.960)
of our perception system and in our mind.
Lex Fridman (04:25.840)
So what's the difference between something
David Chalmers (04:27.400)
that's quote unquote real, that exists perhaps
Lex Fridman (04:30.440)
without us being there, and the world as you perceive it?
David Chalmers (04:36.440)
Well the world as we perceive it is a very simplified
Lex Fridman (04:39.160)
and distorted version of what's going on underneath.
David Chalmers (04:42.800)
We already know that from just thinking about science.
Lex Fridman (04:45.240)
You don't see too many obviously quantum mechanical effects
David Chalmers (04:48.800)
in what we perceive, but we still know quantum mechanics
Lex Fridman (04:51.680)
is going on under all things.
Lex Fridman (04:53.720)
So I like to think the world we perceive
Lex Fridman (04:55.320)
is this very kind of simplified picture of colors
Lex Fridman (05:00.920)
and shapes existing in space and so on.
Lex Fridman (05:04.640)
We know there's a, that's what the philosopher
David Chalmers (05:07.080)
Wilfred Sellers called the manifest image.
Lex Fridman (05:09.760)
The world as it seems to us, we already know
David Chalmers (05:11.560)
underneath all that is a very different scientific image
Lex Fridman (05:14.720)
with atoms or quantum wave functions or super strings
David Chalmers (05:19.520)
or whatever the latest thing is.
Lex Fridman (05:22.360)
And that's the ultimate scientific reality.
Lex Fridman (05:24.880)
So I think of the simulation idea as basically
Lex Fridman (05:28.400)
another hypothesis about what the ultimate
David Chalmers (05:31.080)
say quasi scientific or metaphysical reality
Lex Fridman (05:34.480)
is going on underneath the world of the manifest image.
David Chalmers (05:37.680)
The world of the manifest image is this very simple thing
Lex Fridman (05:41.280)
that we interact with that's neutral
David Chalmers (05:43.240)
on the underlying stuff of reality.
Lex Fridman (05:46.480)
Science can help tell us about that.
David Chalmers (05:48.880)
Maybe philosophy can help tell us about that too.
Lex Fridman (05:51.400)
And if we eventually take the red pill
Lex Fridman (05:53.400)
and find out we're in a simulation,
Lex Fridman (05:54.880)
my view is that's just another view
David Chalmers (05:56.760)
about what reality is made of.
Lex Fridman (05:58.760)
The philosopher Immanuel Kant said,
Lex Fridman (06:00.960)
what is the nature of the thing in itself?
Lex Fridman (06:02.760)
I've got a glass here and it's got all these,
David Chalmers (06:05.400)
it appears to me a certain way, a certain shape,
Lex Fridman (06:07.960)
it's liquid, it's clear.
Lex Fridman (06:10.200)
And he said, what is the nature of the thing
Lex Fridman (06:13.080)
in itself?
David Chalmers (06:14.160)
Well, I think of the simulation idea,
Lex Fridman (06:15.480)
it's a hypothesis about the nature of the thing in itself.
David Chalmers (06:18.640)
It turns out if we're in a simulation,
Lex Fridman (06:20.560)
the thing in itself nature of this glass,
David Chalmers (06:22.640)
it's okay, it's actually a bunch of data structures
Lex Fridman (06:25.000)
running on a computer in the next universe up.
David Chalmers (06:28.360)
Yeah, that's what people tend to do
Lex Fridman (06:30.320)
when they think about simulation.
David Chalmers (06:31.560)
They think about our modern computers
Lex Fridman (06:34.520)
and somehow trivially crudely just scaled up in some sense.
Lex Fridman (06:39.520)
But do you think the simulation,
Lex Fridman (06:44.440)
I mean, in order to actually simulate
David Chalmers (06:47.520)
something as complicated as our universe
Lex Fridman (06:50.400)
that's made up of molecules and atoms
Lex Fridman (06:53.040)
and particles and quarks and maybe even strings,
Lex Fridman (06:57.200)
all of that would require something
David Chalmers (06:59.160)
just infinitely many orders of magnitude more
Lex Fridman (07:03.280)
of scale and complexity.
Lex Fridman (07:06.160)
Do you think we're even able to even like conceptualize
Lex Fridman (07:12.280)
what it would take to simulate our universe?
David Chalmers (07:16.000)
Or does it just slip into this idea
Lex Fridman (07:18.680)
that you basically have to build a universe,
Lex Fridman (07:21.600)
something so big to simulate it?
Lex Fridman (07:24.360)
Does it get this into this fuzzy area
Lex Fridman (07:26.960)
that's not useful at all?
Lex Fridman (07:28.840)
Yeah, well, I mean, our universe
David Chalmers (07:30.720)
is obviously incredibly complicated.
Lex Fridman (07:33.280)
And for us within our universe to build a simulation
David Chalmers (07:37.640)
of a universe as complicated as ours
Lex Fridman (07:40.680)
is gonna have obvious problems here.
David Chalmers (07:42.360)
If the universe is finite,
Lex Fridman (07:44.000)
there's just no way that's gonna work.
David Chalmers (07:45.720)
Maybe there's some cute way to make it work
Lex Fridman (07:48.040)
if the universe is infinite,
David Chalmers (07:51.160)
maybe an infinite universe could somehow simulate
Lex Fridman (07:53.600)
a copy of itself, but that's gonna be hard.
David Chalmers (07:57.120)
Nonetheless, just that we are in a simulation,
Lex Fridman (07:59.760)
I think there's no particular reason
Lex Fridman (08:01.080)
why we have to think the simulating universe
Lex Fridman (08:04.000)
has to be anything like ours.
David Chalmers (08:06.160)
You've said before that it might be,
Lex Fridman (08:09.960)
so you could think of it in turtles all the way down.
David Chalmers (08:12.640)
You could think of the simulating universe
Lex Fridman (08:15.800)
different than ours, but we ourselves
David Chalmers (08:17.720)
could also create another simulating universe.
Lex Fridman (08:20.240)
So you said that there could be these
David Chalmers (08:21.640)
kind of levels of universes.
Lex Fridman (08:24.160)
And you've also mentioned this hilarious idea,
David Chalmers (08:27.080)
maybe tongue in cheek, maybe not,
Lex Fridman (08:29.080)
that there may be simulations within simulations,
David Chalmers (08:31.800)
arbitrarily stacked levels,
Lex Fridman (08:33.840)
and that there may be, that we may be in level 42.
David Chalmers (08:37.760)
Oh yeah.
Lex Fridman (08:38.600)
Along those stacks, referencing Hitchhiker's Guide
David Chalmers (08:40.640)
to the Universe.
Lex Fridman (08:41.800)
If we're indeed in a simulation within a simulation
Lex Fridman (08:45.840)
at level 42, what do you think level zero looks like?
Lex Fridman (08:51.520)
The originating universe.
David Chalmers (08:52.360)
I would expect that level zero is truly enormous.
Lex Fridman (08:55.160)
I mean, not just, if it's finite,
David Chalmers (08:57.680)
at some extraordinarily large finite capacity,
Lex Fridman (09:01.800)
much more likely it's infinite.
David Chalmers (09:03.160)
Maybe it's got some very high cardinality
Lex Fridman (09:06.800)
that enables it to support just any number of simulations.
Lex Fridman (09:11.360)
So high degree of infinity at level zero,
Lex Fridman (09:14.360)
slightly smaller degree of infinity at level one.
Lex Fridman (09:18.880)
So by the time you get down to us at level 42,
Lex Fridman (09:21.480)
maybe there's plenty of room for lots of simulations
David Chalmers (09:25.080)
of finite capacity.
Lex Fridman (09:29.280)
If the top universe is only a small finite capacity,
David Chalmers (09:34.360)
then obviously that's gonna put very, very serious limits
Lex Fridman (09:36.960)
on how many simulations you're gonna be able to get running.
Lex Fridman (09:40.280)
So I think we can certainly confidently say
Lex Fridman (09:42.720)
that if we're at level 42,
David Chalmers (09:44.320)
then the top level's pretty damn big.
Lex Fridman (09:47.120)
So it gets more and more constrained
David Chalmers (09:49.120)
as we get down levels, more and more simplified
Lex Fridman (09:52.200)
and constrained and limited in resources.
David Chalmers (09:54.600)
Yeah, we still have plenty of capacity here.
Lex Fridman (09:56.560)
What was it Feynman said?
David Chalmers (09:58.320)
He said there's plenty of room at the bottom.
Lex Fridman (10:01.040)
We're still a number of levels above the degree
David Chalmers (10:04.600)
where there's room for fundamental computing,
Lex Fridman (10:06.960)
physical computing capacity,
David Chalmers (10:08.400)
quantum computing capacity at the bottom level.
Lex Fridman (10:11.080)
So we've got plenty of room to play with
Lex Fridman (10:13.440)
and we probably have plenty of room
Lex Fridman (10:15.520)
for simulations of pretty sophisticated universes,
David Chalmers (10:19.120)
perhaps none as complicated as our universe,
Lex Fridman (10:22.800)
unless our universe is infinite,
Lex Fridman (10:25.280)
but still at the very least
Lex Fridman (10:27.280)
for pretty serious finite universes,
Lex Fridman (10:29.160)
but maybe universes somewhat simpler than ours,
Lex Fridman (10:31.800)
unless of course we're prepared to take certain shortcuts
David Chalmers (10:35.200)
in the simulation,
Lex Fridman (10:36.080)
which might then increase the capacity significantly.
Lex Fridman (10:38.720)
Do you think the human mind, us people,
Lex Fridman (10:42.240)
in terms of the complexity of simulation
David Chalmers (10:44.700)
is at the height of what the simulation
Lex Fridman (10:47.240)
might be able to achieve?
David Chalmers (10:48.620)
Like if you look at incredible entities
Lex Fridman (10:51.280)
that could be created in this universe of ours,
Lex Fridman (10:54.920)
do you have an intuition about
Lex Fridman (10:56.840)
how incredible human beings are on that scale?
David Chalmers (11:00.600)
I think we're pretty impressive,
Lex Fridman (11:02.400)
but we're not that impressive.
Lex Fridman (11:03.920)
Are we above average?
Lex Fridman (11:06.040)
I mean, I think human beings are at a certain point
David Chalmers (11:09.020)
in the scale of intelligence,
Lex Fridman (11:11.400)
which made many things possible.
David Chalmers (11:14.280)
You get through evolution, through single cell organisms,
Lex Fridman (11:19.280)
through fish and mammals and primates,
Lex Fridman (11:22.720)
and something happens.
Lex Fridman (11:24.160)
Once you get to human beings,
David Chalmers (11:25.800)
we've just reached that level
Lex Fridman (11:27.600)
where we get to develop language,
David Chalmers (11:29.460)
we get to develop certain kinds of culture,
Lex Fridman (11:31.600)
and we get to develop certain kinds of collective thinking
David Chalmers (11:34.920)
that has enabled all this amazing stuff to happen,
Lex Fridman (11:38.380)
science and literature and engineering
Lex Fridman (11:40.800)
and culture and so on.
Lex Fridman (11:43.680)
So we had just at the beginning of that
David Chalmers (11:46.160)
on the evolutionary threshold,
Lex Fridman (11:47.640)
it's kind of like we just got there,
David Chalmers (11:49.720)
who knows, a few thousand or tens of thousands of years ago.
Lex Fridman (11:54.440)
So we're probably just at the very beginning
David Chalmers (11:56.460)
for what's possible there.
Lex Fridman (11:57.720)
So I'm inclined to think among the scale
David Chalmers (12:01.080)
of intelligent beings,
Lex Fridman (12:02.400)
we're somewhere very near the bottom.
David Chalmers (12:05.140)
I would expect that, for example,
Lex Fridman (12:06.320)
if we're in a simulation,
David Chalmers (12:08.800)
then the simulators who created us
Lex Fridman (12:10.960)
have got the capacity to be far more sophisticated.
David Chalmers (12:14.000)
If we're at level 42,
Lex Fridman (12:15.400)
who knows what the ones at level zero are like.
David Chalmers (12:19.120)
It's also possible that this is the epitome
Lex Fridman (12:22.760)
of what is possible to achieve.
Lex Fridman (12:24.540)
So we as human beings see ourselves maybe as flawed,
Lex Fridman (12:27.320)
see all the constraints, all the limitations,
Lex Fridman (12:29.720)
but maybe that's the magical, the beautiful thing.
Lex Fridman (12:32.400)
Maybe those limitations are the essential elements
David Chalmers (12:36.020)
for an interesting sort of that edge of chaos,
Lex Fridman (12:39.020)
that interesting existence,
David Chalmers (12:41.040)
that if you make us much more intelligent,
Lex Fridman (12:43.380)
if you make us much more powerful
David Chalmers (12:46.980)
in any kind of dimension of performance,
Lex Fridman (12:50.360)
maybe you lose something fundamental
David Chalmers (12:52.540)
that makes life worth living.
Lex Fridman (12:55.120)
So you kind of have this optimistic view
David Chalmers (12:57.940)
that we're this little baby,
Lex Fridman (13:00.140)
that then there's so much growth and potential,
Lex Fridman (13:03.020)
but this could also be it.
Lex Fridman (13:05.820)
This is the most amazing thing is us.
David Chalmers (13:09.620)
Maybe what you're saying is consistent
Lex Fridman (13:11.260)
with what I'm saying.
David Chalmers (13:12.100)
I mean, we could still have levels of intelligence
Lex Fridman (13:14.420)
far beyond us,
Lex Fridman (13:15.700)
but maybe those levels of intelligence on your view
Lex Fridman (13:17.740)
would be kind of boring.
Lex Fridman (13:19.020)
And we kind of get so good at everything
Lex Fridman (13:21.440)
that life suddenly becomes uni dimensional.
Lex Fridman (13:24.240)
So we're just inhabiting this one spot
Lex Fridman (13:26.900)
of like maximal romanticism in the history of evolution.
David Chalmers (13:30.740)
You get to humans and it's like, yeah,
Lex Fridman (13:32.180)
and then years to come, our super intelligent descendants
David Chalmers (13:34.980)
are gonna look back at us and say,
Lex Fridman (13:37.580)
those were the days when they just hit
David Chalmers (13:39.740)
the point of inflection and life was interesting.
Lex Fridman (13:42.580)
I am an optimist.
Lex Fridman (13:43.420)
So I'd like to think that if there is super intelligent
Lex Fridman (13:47.100)
somewhere in the future,
David Chalmers (13:49.420)
they'll figure out how to make life super interesting
Lex Fridman (13:51.860)
and super romantic.
David Chalmers (13:52.940)
Well, you know what they're gonna do.
Lex Fridman (13:54.600)
So what they're gonna do is they realize
Lex Fridman (13:56.460)
how boring life is when you're super intelligent.
Lex Fridman (13:58.740)
So they create a new level of assimilation
Lex Fridman (14:02.580)
and sort of live through the things they've created
Lex Fridman (14:05.740)
by watching them stumble about
David Chalmers (14:09.220)
in their flawed ways.
Lex Fridman (14:10.500)
So maybe that's, so you create a new level of assimilation
David Chalmers (14:13.780)
every time you get really bored with how smart and.
Lex Fridman (14:17.860)
This would be kind of sad though,
David Chalmers (14:19.060)
because if we showed the peak of their existence
Lex Fridman (14:20.780)
would be like watching simulations for entertainment.
David Chalmers (14:23.420)
Not like saying the peak of our existence now is Netflix.
Lex Fridman (14:26.540)
No, it's all right.
David Chalmers (14:27.660)
A flip side of that could be the peak of our existence
Lex Fridman (14:31.180)
for many people having children and watching them grow.
David Chalmers (14:34.260)
That becomes very meaningful.
Lex Fridman (14:35.780)
Okay, you create a simulation that's like creating a family.
David Chalmers (14:38.580)
Creating like, well, any kind of creation
Lex Fridman (14:40.860)
is kind of a powerful act.
Lex Fridman (14:43.780)
Do you think it's easier to simulate the mind
Lex Fridman (14:46.220)
or the universe?
Lex Fridman (14:47.760)
So I've heard several people, including Nick Bostrom,
Lex Fridman (14:51.960)
think about ideas of maybe you don't need
David Chalmers (14:54.620)
to simulate the universe,
Lex Fridman (14:55.600)
you can just simulate the human mind.
David Chalmers (14:57.440)
Or in general, just the distinction
Lex Fridman (15:00.380)
between simulating the entirety of it,
David Chalmers (15:02.600)
the entirety of the physical world,
Lex Fridman (15:04.600)
or just simulating the mind.
Lex Fridman (15:06.080)
Which one do you see as more challenging?
Lex Fridman (15:09.740)
Well, I think in some sense, the answer is obvious.
David Chalmers (15:12.380)
It has to be simpler to simulate the mind
Lex Fridman (15:15.060)
than to simulate the universe,
David Chalmers (15:16.500)
because the mind is part of the universe.
Lex Fridman (15:18.500)
And in order to fully simulate the universe,
David Chalmers (15:20.540)
you're gonna have to simulate the mind.
Lex Fridman (15:22.620)
So unless we're talking about partial simulations.
Lex Fridman (15:25.320)
And I guess the question is which comes first?
Lex Fridman (15:27.580)
Does the mind come before the universe
Lex Fridman (15:29.800)
or does the universe come before the mind?
Lex Fridman (15:32.560)
So the mind could just be an emergent phenomena
David Chalmers (15:36.620)
in this universe.
Lex Fridman (15:37.960)
So simulation is an interesting thing
David Chalmers (15:42.020)
that it's not like creating a simulation perhaps
Lex Fridman (15:47.380)
requires you to program every single thing
David Chalmers (15:50.380)
that happens in it.
Lex Fridman (15:51.780)
It's just defining a set of initial conditions
Lex Fridman (15:54.220)
and rules based on which it behaves.
Lex Fridman (15:59.600)
Simulating the mind requires you
David Chalmers (16:01.940)
to have a little bit more,
Lex Fridman (16:05.160)
we're now in a little bit of a crazy land,
Lex Fridman (16:07.300)
but it requires you to understand
Lex Fridman (16:10.260)
the fundamentals of cognition,
David Chalmers (16:11.840)
perhaps of consciousness,
Lex Fridman (16:13.660)
of perception of everything like that,
David Chalmers (16:16.640)
that's not created through some kind of emergence
Lex Fridman (16:23.340)
from basic physics laws,
Lex Fridman (16:25.880)
but more requires you to actually understand
Lex Fridman (16:27.940)
the fundamentals of the mind.
Lex Fridman (16:29.820)
How about if we said to simulate the brain?
Lex Fridman (16:31.660)
The brain.
David Chalmers (16:32.500)
Rather than the mind.
Lex Fridman (16:33.940)
So the brain is just a big physical system.
David Chalmers (16:36.060)
The universe is a giant physical system.
Lex Fridman (16:38.620)
To simulate the universe at the very least,
David Chalmers (16:40.100)
you're gonna have to simulate the brains
Lex Fridman (16:42.640)
as well as all the other physical systems within it.
Lex Fridman (16:46.140)
And it's not obvious that the problems are any worse
Lex Fridman (16:50.920)
for the brain than for,
David Chalmers (16:53.580)
it's a particularly complex physical system.
Lex Fridman (16:56.040)
But if we can simulate arbitrary physical systems,
David Chalmers (16:58.600)
we can simulate brains.
Lex Fridman (16:59.880)
There is this further question of whether,
David Chalmers (17:02.100)
when you simulate a brain,
Lex Fridman (17:03.980)
will that bring along all the features of the mind with it?
Lex Fridman (17:07.340)
Like will you get consciousness?
Lex Fridman (17:08.880)
Will you get thinking?
Lex Fridman (17:09.980)
Will you get free will?
Lex Fridman (17:11.600)
And so on.
Lex Fridman (17:12.540)
And that's something philosophers have argued over
Lex Fridman (17:16.200)
for years.
David Chalmers (17:17.060)
My own view is if you simulate the brain well enough,
Lex Fridman (17:20.060)
that will also simulate the mind.
Lex Fridman (17:22.620)
But yeah, there's plenty of people who would say no.
Lex Fridman (17:24.860)
You'd merely get like a zombie system,
David Chalmers (17:27.140)
a simulation of a brain without any true consciousness.
Lex Fridman (17:31.300)
But for you, you put together a brain,
David Chalmers (17:33.420)
the consciousness comes with it, arise.
Lex Fridman (17:36.320)
Yeah, I don't think it's obvious.
David Chalmers (17:38.640)
That's your intuition.
Lex Fridman (17:39.660)
My view is roughly that yeah,
Lex Fridman (17:41.320)
what is responsible for consciousness,
Lex Fridman (17:43.100)
it's in the patterns of information processing and so on
David Chalmers (17:46.960)
rather than say the biology that it's made of.
Lex Fridman (17:50.460)
There's certainly plenty of people out there
David Chalmers (17:51.780)
who think consciousness has to be say biological.
Lex Fridman (17:54.520)
So if you merely replicate the patterns of information
David Chalmers (17:57.300)
processing in a nonbiological substrate,
Lex Fridman (17:59.680)
you'll miss what's crucial for consciousness.
David Chalmers (18:02.440)
I mean, I just don't think there's any particular reason
Lex Fridman (18:04.320)
to think that biology is special here.
David Chalmers (18:07.380)
You can imagine substituting the biology
Lex Fridman (18:09.620)
for nonbiological systems, say silicon circuits
David Chalmers (18:13.700)
that play the same role.
Lex Fridman (18:15.120)
The behavior will continue to be the same.
Lex Fridman (18:17.620)
And I think just thinking about what is the true,
Lex Fridman (18:21.300)
when I think about the connection,
David Chalmers (18:22.300)
the isomorphisms between consciousness and the brain,
Lex Fridman (18:25.540)
the deepest connections to me seem to connect consciousness
David Chalmers (18:28.300)
to patterns of information processing,
Lex Fridman (18:30.300)
not to specific biology.
Lex Fridman (18:32.380)
So I at least adopted as my working hypothesis
Lex Fridman (18:35.180)
that basically it's the computation and the information
David Chalmers (18:38.180)
that matters for consciousness.
Lex Fridman (18:39.580)
Same time, we don't understand consciousness,
Lex Fridman (18:41.820)
so all this could be wrong.
Lex Fridman (18:43.700)
So the computation, the flow, the processing,
David Chalmers (18:48.180)
manipulation of information,
Lex Fridman (18:49.840)
the process is where the consciousness,
David Chalmers (18:54.440)
the software is where the consciousness comes from,
Lex Fridman (18:56.480)
not the hardware.
David Chalmers (18:57.860)
Roughly the software, yeah.
Lex Fridman (18:59.200)
The patterns of information processing at least
David Chalmers (19:01.800)
in the hardware, which we could view as software.
Lex Fridman (19:05.720)
It may not be something you can just like program
Lex Fridman (19:07.360)
and load and erase and so on in the way we can
Lex Fridman (19:11.360)
with ordinary software, but it's something at the level
David Chalmers (19:14.000)
of information processing rather than at the level
Lex Fridman (19:16.240)
of implementation.
Lex Fridman (19:17.960)
So on that, what do you think of the experience of self,
Lex Fridman (19:22.480)
just the experience of the world in a virtual world,
Lex Fridman (19:26.040)
in virtual reality?
Lex Fridman (19:27.920)
Is it possible that we can create sort of
David Chalmers (19:33.480)
offsprings of our consciousness by existing
Lex Fridman (19:36.760)
in a virtual world long enough?
Lex Fridman (19:38.840)
So yeah, can we be conscious in the same kind
Lex Fridman (19:44.520)
of deep way that we are in this real world
Lex Fridman (19:47.640)
by hanging out in a virtual world?
Lex Fridman (19:51.120)
Yeah, well, the kind of virtual worlds we have now
David Chalmers (19:54.160)
are interesting but limited in certain ways.
Lex Fridman (19:58.040)
In particular, they rely on us having a brain and so on,
David Chalmers (1:00:07.680)
Likewise, plants, well, again, if they're not conscious,
Lex Fridman (1:00:09.880)
most people think by uprooting a plant,
David Chalmers (1:00:11.960)
you're not harming it.
Lex Fridman (1:00:13.520)
But if a being is conscious on the other hand,
David Chalmers (1:00:16.160)
then you are harming it.
Lex Fridman (1:00:17.200)
So Siri, or I dare not say the name of Alexa.
David Chalmers (1:00:24.960)
Anyway, so we don't think we're morally harming Alexa
Lex Fridman (1:00:28.600)
by turning her off or disconnecting her
David Chalmers (1:00:30.440)
or even destroying her, whether it's the system
Lex Fridman (1:00:34.080)
or the underlying software system,
David Chalmers (1:00:36.160)
because we don't really think she's conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:00:39.040)
On the other hand, you move to like the disembodied being
David Chalmers (1:00:42.400)
in the movie, her, Samantha,
Lex Fridman (1:00:45.520)
I guess she was kind of presented as conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:00:47.480)
And then if you destroyed her,
Lex Fridman (1:00:49.760)
you'd certainly be committing a serious harm.
Lex Fridman (1:00:51.760)
So I think our strong sense is if a being is conscious
Lex Fridman (1:00:55.200)
and can undergo subjective experiences,
David Chalmers (1:00:57.440)
then it matters morally how we treat them.
Lex Fridman (1:01:00.360)
So if a robot is conscious, it matters,
Lex Fridman (1:01:03.040)
but if a robot is not conscious,
Lex Fridman (1:01:05.360)
then they're basically just meat or a machine
Lex Fridman (1:01:07.160)
and it doesn't matter.
Lex Fridman (1:01:10.360)
So I think at least maybe how we think about this stuff
David Chalmers (1:01:13.000)
is fundamentally wrong,
Lex Fridman (1:01:13.960)
but I think a lot of people
David Chalmers (1:01:15.480)
who think about this stuff seriously,
Lex Fridman (1:01:17.200)
including people who think about,
David Chalmers (1:01:18.320)
say the moral treatment of animals and so on,
Lex Fridman (1:01:20.800)
come to the view that consciousness
David Chalmers (1:01:23.360)
is ultimately kind of the line between systems
Lex Fridman (1:01:25.760)
that where we have to take them into account
Lex Fridman (1:01:29.320)
and thinking morally about how we act
Lex Fridman (1:01:32.240)
and systems for which we don't.
Lex Fridman (1:01:34.440)
And I think I've seen you the writer talk about
Lex Fridman (1:01:38.560)
the demonstration of consciousness from a system like that,
David Chalmers (1:01:41.800)
from a system like Alexa or a conversational agent
Lex Fridman (1:01:48.120)
that what you would be looking for
David Chalmers (1:01:51.160)
is kind of at the very basic level
Lex Fridman (1:01:54.600)
for the system to have an awareness
David Chalmers (1:01:58.160)
that I'm just a program
Lex Fridman (1:02:00.440)
and yet, why do I experience this?
David Chalmers (1:02:03.880)
Or not to have that experience,
Lex Fridman (1:02:06.160)
but to communicate that to you.
Lex Fridman (1:02:08.000)
So that's what us humans would sound like.
Lex Fridman (1:02:10.680)
If you all of a sudden woke up one day,
David Chalmers (1:02:13.000)
like Kafka, right, in a body of a bug or something,
Lex Fridman (1:02:15.600)
but in a computer, you all of a sudden realized
David Chalmers (1:02:18.320)
you don't have a body
Lex Fridman (1:02:19.720)
and yet you were feeling what you were feeling,
David Chalmers (1:02:22.480)
you would probably say those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:02:25.920)
So do you think a system essentially becomes conscious
David Chalmers (1:02:29.520)
by convincing us that it's conscious
Lex Fridman (1:02:34.400)
through the words that I just mentioned?
Lex Fridman (1:02:36.200)
So by being confused about the fact
Lex Fridman (1:02:40.080)
that why am I having these experiences?
Lex Fridman (1:02:45.000)
So basically.
Lex Fridman (1:02:45.840)
I don't think this is what makes you conscious,
Lex Fridman (1:02:48.080)
but I do think being puzzled about consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:02:50.240)
is a very good sign that a system is conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:02:53.280)
So if I encountered a robot
Lex Fridman (1:02:55.600)
that actually seemed to be genuinely puzzled
David Chalmers (1:02:58.640)
by its own mental states
Lex Fridman (1:03:01.280)
and saying, yeah, I have all these weird experiences
Lex Fridman (1:03:04.000)
and I don't see how to explain them.
Lex Fridman (1:03:06.320)
I know I'm just a set of silicon circuits,
Lex Fridman (1:03:08.720)
but I don't see how that would give you my consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:03:11.600)
I would at least take that as some evidence
David Chalmers (1:03:13.840)
that there's some consciousness going on there.
Lex Fridman (1:03:16.720)
I don't think a system needs to be puzzled
David Chalmers (1:03:19.440)
about consciousness to be conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:03:21.760)
Many people aren't puzzled by their consciousness.
David Chalmers (1:03:24.000)
Animals don't seem to be puzzled at all.
Lex Fridman (1:03:26.320)
I still think they're conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:03:28.000)
So I don't think that's a requirement on consciousness,
Lex Fridman (1:03:30.680)
but I do think if we're looking for signs
David Chalmers (1:03:33.360)
for consciousness, say in AI systems,
Lex Fridman (1:03:37.000)
one of the things that will help convince me
David Chalmers (1:03:39.120)
that an AI system is conscious is if it shows signs of,
Lex Fridman (1:03:44.080)
if it shows signs of introspectively recognizing something
David Chalmers (1:03:47.360)
like consciousness and finding this philosophically puzzling
Lex Fridman (1:03:51.280)
in the way that we do.
David Chalmers (1:03:54.200)
It's such an interesting thought, though,
Lex Fridman (1:03:55.920)
because a lot of people sort of would,
David Chalmers (1:03:57.920)
at the Shao level, criticize the Turing test for language.
Lex Fridman (1:04:02.160)
It's essentially what I heard Dan Dennett
David Chalmers (1:04:07.600)
criticize it in this kind of way,
Lex Fridman (1:04:09.800)
which is it really puts a lot of emphasis on lying.
David Chalmers (1:04:13.280)
Yeah, and being able to imitate
Lex Fridman (1:04:17.080)
human beings, yeah, there's this cartoon
David Chalmers (1:04:20.480)
of the AI system studying for the Turing test.
Lex Fridman (1:04:23.240)
It's gotta read this book called Talk Like a Human.
David Chalmers (1:04:26.680)
It's like, man, why do I have to waste my time
Lex Fridman (1:04:28.360)
learning how to imitate humans?
David Chalmers (1:04:30.480)
Maybe the AI system is gonna be way beyond
Lex Fridman (1:04:32.280)
the hard problem of consciousness,
Lex Fridman (1:04:33.800)
and it's gonna be just like,
Lex Fridman (1:04:34.760)
why do I need to waste my time pretending
David Chalmers (1:04:36.400)
that I recognize the hard problem of consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:04:40.120)
in order for people to recognize me as conscious?
David Chalmers (1:04:42.160)
Yeah, it just feels like, I guess the question is,
Lex Fridman (1:04:45.000)
do you think we can ever really create
Lex Fridman (1:04:48.320)
a test for consciousness?
Lex Fridman (1:04:49.440)
Because it feels like we're very human centric,
Lex Fridman (1:04:53.920)
and so the only way we would be convinced
Lex Fridman (1:04:57.600)
that something is conscious is basically
David Chalmers (1:05:00.880)
the thing demonstrates the illusion of consciousness,
Lex Fridman (1:05:06.440)
that we can never really know whether it's conscious or not,
Lex Fridman (1:05:10.320)
and in fact, that almost feels like it doesn't matter then,
Lex Fridman (1:05:14.800)
or does it still matter to you that something is conscious
Lex Fridman (1:05:18.560)
or it demonstrates consciousness?
Lex Fridman (1:05:20.720)
You still see that fundamental distinction.
David Chalmers (1:05:22.840)
I think to a lot of people,
Lex Fridman (1:05:24.880)
whether a system is conscious or not
David Chalmers (1:05:27.400)
matters hugely for many things,
Lex Fridman (1:05:28.920)
like how we treat it, can it suffer, and so on,
Lex Fridman (1:05:33.080)
but still, that leaves open the question,
Lex Fridman (1:05:35.080)
how can we ever know?
Lex Fridman (1:05:36.800)
And it's true that it's awfully hard
Lex Fridman (1:05:38.480)
to see how we can know for sure
David Chalmers (1:05:40.600)
whether a system is conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:05:42.360)
I suspect that sociologically,
David Chalmers (1:05:44.880)
the thing that's gonna convince us
Lex Fridman (1:05:46.280)
that a system is conscious is, in part,
David Chalmers (1:05:50.080)
things like social interaction, conversation, and so on,
Lex Fridman (1:05:53.880)
where they seem to be conscious,
David Chalmers (1:05:56.040)
they talk about their conscious states
Lex Fridman (1:05:57.680)
or just talk about being happy or sad
David Chalmers (1:06:00.040)
or finding things meaningful or being in pain.
Lex Fridman (1:06:02.800)
That will tend to convince us if we don't,
David Chalmers (1:06:06.640)
if a system genuinely seems to be conscious,
Lex Fridman (1:06:08.360)
we don't treat it as such,
David Chalmers (1:06:10.000)
eventually it's gonna seem like a strange form
Lex Fridman (1:06:11.960)
of racism or speciesism or somehow,
David Chalmers (1:06:14.720)
not to acknowledge them as conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:06:16.320)
I truly believe that, by the way.
David Chalmers (1:06:17.760)
I believe that there is going to be
Lex Fridman (1:06:21.280)
something akin to the Civil Rights Movement,
Lex Fridman (1:06:23.240)
but for robots.
Lex Fridman (1:06:25.680)
I think the moment you have a Roomba say,
David Chalmers (1:06:30.000)
please don't kick me, that hurts, just say it.
Lex Fridman (1:06:32.840)
Yeah.
David Chalmers (1:06:33.840)
I think that will fundamentally change
Lex Fridman (1:06:37.440)
the fabric of our society.
David Chalmers (1:06:40.320)
I think you're probably right,
Lex Fridman (1:06:41.160)
although it's gonna be very tricky
David Chalmers (1:06:42.200)
because, just say we've got the technology
Lex Fridman (1:06:44.920)
where these conscious beings can just be created
Lex Fridman (1:06:47.240)
and multiplied by the thousands by flicking a switch.
Lex Fridman (1:06:54.280)
The legal status is gonna be different,
Lex Fridman (1:06:55.920)
but ultimately their moral status ought to be the same,
Lex Fridman (1:06:58.100)
and yeah, the civil rights issue is gonna be a huge mess.
Lex Fridman (1:07:03.680)
So if one day somebody clones you,
Lex Fridman (1:07:06.680)
another very real possibility.
David Chalmers (1:07:10.520)
In fact, I find the conversation between
Lex Fridman (1:07:13.760)
two copies of David Chalmers quite interesting.
David Chalmers (1:07:21.400)
Very thought.
Lex Fridman (1:07:22.240)
Who is this idiot?
David Chalmers (1:07:25.120)
He's not making any sense.
Lex Fridman (1:07:26.520)
So what, do you think he would be conscious?
David Chalmers (1:07:32.320)
I do think he would be conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:07:34.480)
I do think in some sense,
David Chalmers (1:07:35.760)
I'm not sure it would be me,
Lex Fridman (1:07:37.000)
there would be two different beings at this point.
David Chalmers (1:07:39.960)
I think they'd both be conscious
Lex Fridman (1:07:41.240)
and they both have many of the same mental properties.
David Chalmers (1:07:45.800)
I think they both in a way have the same moral status.
Lex Fridman (1:07:49.400)
It'd be wrong to hurt either of them
David Chalmers (1:07:51.560)
or to kill them and so on.
Lex Fridman (1:07:54.560)
Still, there's some sense in which probably
David Chalmers (1:07:55.960)
their legal status would have to be different.
Lex Fridman (1:07:58.480)
If I'm the original and that one's just a clone,
David Chalmers (1:08:01.600)
then creating a clone of me,
Lex Fridman (1:08:03.280)
presumably the clone doesn't, for example,
David Chalmers (1:08:05.000)
automatically own the stuff that I own
Lex Fridman (1:08:08.600)
or I've got a certain connect,
David Chalmers (1:08:14.400)
the things that the people I interact with,
Lex Fridman (1:08:16.400)
my family, my partner and so on,
David Chalmers (1:08:19.120)
I'm gonna somehow be connected to them
Lex Fridman (1:08:21.120)
in a way in which the clone isn't, so.
Lex Fridman (1:08:24.560)
Because you came slightly first?
Lex Fridman (1:08:26.400)
Yeah.
David Chalmers (1:08:27.240)
Because a clone would argue that they have
Lex Fridman (1:08:31.320)
really as much of a connection.
David Chalmers (1:08:33.680)
They have all the memories of that connection.
Lex Fridman (1:08:35.600)
Then a way you might say it's kind of unfair
David Chalmers (1:08:37.920)
to discriminate against them,
Lex Fridman (1:08:38.920)
but say you've got an apartment
David Chalmers (1:08:40.080)
that only one person can live in
Lex Fridman (1:08:41.440)
or a partner who only one person can be with.
Lex Fridman (1:08:44.000)
But why should it be you, the original?
Lex Fridman (1:08:47.320)
It's an interesting philosophical question,
Lex Fridman (1:08:49.080)
but you might say because I actually have this history,
Lex Fridman (1:08:53.160)
if I am the same person as the one that came before
Lex Fridman (1:08:56.880)
and the clone is not,
Lex Fridman (1:08:58.480)
then I have this history that the clone doesn't.
David Chalmers (1:09:01.000)
Of course, there's also the question,
Lex Fridman (1:09:03.880)
isn't the clone the same person too?
David Chalmers (1:09:05.840)
This is a question about personal identity.
Lex Fridman (1:09:07.560)
If I continue and I create a clone over there,
David Chalmers (1:09:10.720)
I wanna say this one is me and this one is someone else.
Lex Fridman (1:09:14.120)
But you could take the view that a clone is equally me.
David Chalmers (1:09:17.960)
Of course, in a movie like Star Trek
Lex Fridman (1:09:20.120)
where they have a teletransporter
David Chalmers (1:09:21.320)
basically creates clones all the time.
Lex Fridman (1:09:23.480)
They treat the clones as if they're the original person.
David Chalmers (1:09:25.960)
Of course, they destroy the original body in Star Trek.
Lex Fridman (1:09:29.240)
So there's only one left around
Lex Fridman (1:09:31.000)
and only very occasionally do things go wrong
Lex Fridman (1:09:32.720)
and you get two copies of Captain Kirk.
Lex Fridman (1:09:35.840)
But somehow our legal system at the very least
Lex Fridman (1:09:37.800)
is gonna have to sort out some of these issues
Lex Fridman (1:09:40.640)
and that maybe that's what's moral
Lex Fridman (1:09:42.200)
and what's legally acceptable are gonna come apart.
Lex Fridman (1:09:47.360)
What question would you ask a clone of yourself?
Lex Fridman (1:09:52.160)
Is there something useful you can find out from him
Lex Fridman (1:09:56.120)
about the fundamentals of consciousness even?
Lex Fridman (1:10:00.600)
I mean, kind of in principle,
David Chalmers (1:10:03.840)
I know that if it's a perfect clone,
Lex Fridman (1:10:06.720)
it's gonna behave just like me.
Lex Fridman (1:10:09.080)
So I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to,
Lex Fridman (1:10:11.360)
I can discover whether it's a perfect clone
David Chalmers (1:10:13.160)
by seeing whether it answers like me.
Lex Fridman (1:10:15.240)
But otherwise I know what I'm gonna find is a being
David Chalmers (1:10:18.000)
which is just like me,
Lex Fridman (1:10:19.440)
except that it's just undergone this great shock
David Chalmers (1:10:21.960)
of discovering that it's a clone.
Lex Fridman (1:10:24.480)
So just say you woke me up tomorrow and said,
David Chalmers (1:10:26.520)
hey Dave, sorry to tell you this,
Lex Fridman (1:10:29.120)
but you're actually the clone
Lex Fridman (1:10:31.880)
and you provided me really convincing evidence,
Lex Fridman (1:10:34.280)
showed me the film of my being cloned
Lex Fridman (1:10:36.920)
and then all wrapped in here being here and waking up.
Lex Fridman (1:10:41.360)
So you proved to me I'm a clone,
David Chalmers (1:10:42.440)
well, yeah, okay, I would find that shocking
Lex Fridman (1:10:44.560)
and who knows how I would react to this.
Lex Fridman (1:10:46.480)
So maybe by talking to the clone,
Lex Fridman (1:10:48.640)
I'd find something about my own psychology
David Chalmers (1:10:50.880)
that I can't find out so easily,
Lex Fridman (1:10:52.600)
like how I'd react upon discovering that I'm a clone.
David Chalmers (1:10:55.440)
I could certainly ask the clone if it's conscious
Lex Fridman (1:10:57.840)
and what his consciousness is like and so on,
Lex Fridman (1:10:59.840)
but I guess I kind of know if it's a perfect clone,
Lex Fridman (1:11:02.680)
it's gonna behave roughly like me.
David Chalmers (1:11:04.520)
Of course, at the beginning,
Lex Fridman (1:11:06.200)
there'll be a question
David Chalmers (1:11:07.040)
about whether a perfect clone is possible.
Lex Fridman (1:11:08.880)
So I may wanna ask it lots of questions
David Chalmers (1:11:11.120)
to see if it's consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:11:12.400)
and the way it talks about its consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:11:14.600)
and the way it reacts to things in general is likely.
Lex Fridman (1:11:17.560)
And that will occupy us for a while.
Lex Fridman (1:11:22.400)
So basic unit testing on the early models.
Lex Fridman (1:11:25.840)
So if it's a perfect clone,
David Chalmers (1:11:28.520)
you say that it's gonna behave exactly like you.
Lex Fridman (1:11:30.760)
So that takes us to free will.
Lex Fridman (1:11:35.640)
Is there free will?
Lex Fridman (1:11:37.400)
Are we able to make decisions that are not predetermined
Lex Fridman (1:11:41.440)
from the initial conditions of the universe?
Lex Fridman (1:11:44.880)
You know, philosophers do this annoying thing
David Chalmers (1:11:46.680)
of saying it depends what you mean.
Lex Fridman (1:11:48.720)
So in this case, yeah, it really depends on what you mean,
David Chalmers (1:11:52.360)
by free will.
Lex Fridman (1:11:54.480)
If you mean something which was not determined in advance,
David Chalmers (1:11:58.680)
could never have been determined,
Lex Fridman (1:12:00.560)
then I don't know we have free will.
David Chalmers (1:12:02.240)
I mean, there's quantum mechanics
Lex Fridman (1:12:03.640)
and who's to say if that opens up some room,
Lex Fridman (1:12:06.160)
but I'm not sure we have free will in that sense.
Lex Fridman (1:12:09.560)
But I'm also not sure that's the kind of free will
David Chalmers (1:12:12.280)
that really matters.
Lex Fridman (1:12:13.840)
You know, what matters to us
David Chalmers (1:12:15.720)
is being able to do what we want
Lex Fridman (1:12:17.160)
and to create our own futures.
David Chalmers (1:12:19.800)
We've got this distinction between having our lives
Lex Fridman (1:12:21.520)
be under our control and under someone else's control.
David Chalmers (1:12:26.680)
We've got the sense of actions that we are responsible for
Lex Fridman (1:12:29.440)
versus ones that we're not.
David Chalmers (1:12:31.160)
I think you can make those distinctions
Lex Fridman (1:12:33.760)
even in a deterministic universe.
Lex Fridman (1:12:36.400)
And this is what people call the compatibilist view
Lex Fridman (1:12:38.280)
of free will, where it's compatible with determinism.
Lex Fridman (1:12:41.240)
So I think for many purposes,
Lex Fridman (1:12:42.880)
the kind of free will that matters
David Chalmers (1:12:45.520)
is something we can have in a deterministic universe.
Lex Fridman (1:12:48.080)
And I can't see any reason in principle
Lex Fridman (1:12:50.440)
why an AI system couldn't have free will of that kind.
Lex Fridman (1:12:54.440)
If you mean super duper free will,
David Chalmers (1:12:55.840)
the ability to violate the laws of physics
Lex Fridman (1:12:57.720)
and doing things that in principle could not be predicted.
David Chalmers (1:13:01.760)
I don't know, maybe no one has that kind of free will.
Lex Fridman (1:13:04.680)
What's the connection between the reality of free will
Lex Fridman (1:13:10.040)
and the experience of it,
Lex Fridman (1:13:11.400)
the subjective experience in your view?
Lex Fridman (1:13:15.240)
So how does consciousness connect
Lex Fridman (1:13:17.000)
to the reality and the experience of free will?
David Chalmers (1:13:22.240)
It's certainly true that when we make decisions
Lex Fridman (1:13:24.800)
and when we choose and so on,
David Chalmers (1:13:26.200)
we feel like we have an open future.
Lex Fridman (1:13:28.440)
Feel like I could do this, I could go into philosophy
David Chalmers (1:13:32.440)
or I could go into math, I could go to a movie tonight,
Lex Fridman (1:13:36.080)
I could go to a restaurant.
Lex Fridman (1:13:39.280)
So we experience these things as if the future is open.
Lex Fridman (1:13:42.600)
And maybe we experience ourselves
David Chalmers (1:13:44.520)
as exerting a kind of effect on the future
Lex Fridman (1:13:50.040)
that somehow picking out one path
David Chalmers (1:13:51.680)
from many paths were previously open.
Lex Fridman (1:13:54.200)
And you might think that actually
David Chalmers (1:13:56.080)
if we're in a deterministic universe,
Lex Fridman (1:13:58.080)
there's a sense of which objectively
David Chalmers (1:13:59.880)
those paths weren't really open all along,
Lex Fridman (1:14:03.720)
but subjectively they were open.
Lex Fridman (1:14:05.800)
And that's, I think that's what really matters
Lex Fridman (1:14:07.320)
in making a decisions where our experience
David Chalmers (1:14:09.440)
of making a decision is choosing a path for ourselves.
Lex Fridman (1:14:14.320)
I mean, in general, our introspective models of the mind,
David Chalmers (1:14:18.120)
I think are generally very distorted representations
Lex Fridman (1:14:20.600)
of the mind.
Lex Fridman (1:14:21.600)
So it may well be that our experience of ourself
Lex Fridman (1:14:24.200)
in making a decision, our experience of what's going on
David Chalmers (1:14:27.600)
doesn't terribly well mirror what's going on.
Lex Fridman (1:14:31.000)
I mean, maybe there are antecedents in the brain
David Chalmers (1:14:33.160)
way before anything came into consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:14:37.760)
and so on.
David Chalmers (1:14:39.000)
Those aren't represented in our introspective model.
Lex Fridman (1:14:41.720)
So in general, our experience of perception,
Lex Fridman (1:14:46.960)
so I experience a perceptual image of the external world.
Lex Fridman (1:14:50.600)
It's not a terribly good model of what's actually going on
David Chalmers (1:14:53.360)
in my visual cortex and so on,
Lex Fridman (1:14:55.640)
which has all these layers and so on.
David Chalmers (1:14:57.080)
It's just one little snapshot of one bit of that.
Lex Fridman (1:14:59.800)
So in general, introspective models
David Chalmers (1:15:02.440)
are very over oversimplified.
Lex Fridman (1:15:05.240)
And it wouldn't be surprising
David Chalmers (1:15:07.200)
if that was true of free will as well.
Lex Fridman (1:15:09.160)
This also incidentally can be applied to consciousness itself.
David Chalmers (1:15:12.640)
There is this very interesting view
Lex Fridman (1:15:13.960)
that consciousness itself is an introspective illusion.
David Chalmers (1:15:17.520)
In fact, we're not conscious,
Lex Fridman (1:15:19.440)
but the brain just has these introspective models of itself
David Chalmers (1:15:24.280)
or oversimplifies everything and represents itself
Lex Fridman (1:15:27.160)
as having these special properties of consciousness.
David Chalmers (1:15:31.040)
It's a really simple way to kind of keep track of itself
Lex Fridman (1:15:33.840)
and so on.
Lex Fridman (1:15:34.680)
And then on the illusionist view,
Lex Fridman (1:15:36.920)
yeah, that's just an illusion.
David Chalmers (1:15:39.880)
I find this view, when I find it implausible,
Lex Fridman (1:15:42.240)
I do find it very attractive in some ways,
David Chalmers (1:15:44.840)
because it's easy to tell some story
Lex Fridman (1:15:46.640)
about how the brain would create introspective models
David Chalmers (1:15:50.120)
of its own consciousness, of its own free will
Lex Fridman (1:15:53.120)
as a way of simplifying itself.
David Chalmers (1:15:55.480)
I mean, it's a similar way when we perceive
Lex Fridman (1:15:57.680)
the external world, we perceive it as having these colors
David Chalmers (1:16:00.040)
that maybe it doesn't really have,
Lex Fridman (1:16:02.720)
but of course that's a really useful way
David Chalmers (1:16:04.280)
of keeping tracks, of keeping track.
Lex Fridman (1:16:06.440)
Did you say that you find it not very plausible?
David Chalmers (1:16:08.960)
Because I find it both plausible
Lex Fridman (1:16:11.880)
and attractive in some sense,
David Chalmers (1:16:14.120)
because I mean, that kind of view
Lex Fridman (1:16:18.920)
is one that has the minimum amount of mystery around it.
David Chalmers (1:16:25.040)
You can kind of understand that kind of view.
Lex Fridman (1:16:28.960)
Everything else says we don't understand
Lex Fridman (1:16:31.960)
so much of this picture.
Lex Fridman (1:16:33.920)
No, it is very attractive, I recently wrote an article
David Chalmers (1:16:36.800)
about this kind of issue called
Lex Fridman (1:16:38.600)
the meta problem of consciousness.
David Chalmers (1:16:41.280)
The hard problem is how does a brain
Lex Fridman (1:16:43.200)
give you consciousness?
David Chalmers (1:16:44.200)
The meta problem is why are we puzzled
Lex Fridman (1:16:46.720)
by the hard problem of consciousness?
David Chalmers (1:16:49.600)
Because being puzzled by it,
Lex Fridman (1:16:50.960)
that's ultimately a bit of behavior.
David Chalmers (1:16:53.000)
We might be able to explain that bit of behavior
Lex Fridman (1:16:54.880)
as one of the easy problems, consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:16:57.560)
So maybe there'll be some computational model
Lex Fridman (1:17:00.560)
that explains why we're puzzled by consciousness.
David Chalmers (1:17:03.440)
The meta problem has come up with that model.
Lex Fridman (1:17:05.800)
And I've been thinking about that a lot lately.
David Chalmers (1:17:07.880)
There's some interesting stories you can tell
Lex Fridman (1:17:09.560)
about why the right kind of computational system
David Chalmers (1:17:13.600)
might develop these introspective models of itself
Lex Fridman (1:17:17.640)
that attributed itself, these special properties.
Lex Fridman (1:17:21.560)
So that meta problem is a research program for everyone.
Lex Fridman (1:17:25.320)
And then if you've got attraction
David Chalmers (1:17:27.000)
to sort of simple views, desert landscapes and so on,
Lex Fridman (1:17:31.320)
then you can go all the way
David Chalmers (1:17:32.240)
with what people call illusionism
Lex Fridman (1:17:34.240)
and say, in fact, consciousness itself is not real.
Lex Fridman (1:17:37.760)
What is real is just these introspective models
Lex Fridman (1:17:42.400)
we have that tell us that we're conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:17:46.000)
So the view is very simple, very attractive, very powerful.
Lex Fridman (1:17:49.600)
The trouble is, of course, it has to say
David Chalmers (1:17:51.240)
that deep down, consciousness is not real.
Lex Fridman (1:17:55.160)
We're not actually experiencing right now.
Lex Fridman (1:17:57.960)
And it looks like it's just contradicting
Lex Fridman (1:17:59.960)
a fundamental datum of our existence.
Lex Fridman (1:18:02.360)
And this is why most people find this view crazy.
Lex Fridman (1:18:06.080)
Just as they find panpsychism crazy in one way,
David Chalmers (1:18:08.760)
people find illusionism crazy in another way.
Lex Fridman (1:18:13.240)
But I mean, so yes, it has to deny
David Chalmers (1:18:18.000)
this fundamental datum of our existence.
Lex Fridman (1:18:20.640)
Now, that makes the view sort of frankly unbelievable
David Chalmers (1:18:24.680)
for most people.
Lex Fridman (1:18:25.520)
On the other hand, the view developed right
David Chalmers (1:18:28.200)
might be able to explain why we find it unbelievable.
Lex Fridman (1:18:31.280)
Because these models are so deeply hardwired into our head.
Lex Fridman (1:18:34.280)
And they're all integrated.
Lex Fridman (1:18:36.000)
You can't escape the illusion.
Lex Fridman (1:18:38.480)
And it's a crazy possibility.
Lex Fridman (1:18:40.720)
Is it possible that the entirety of the universe,
David Chalmers (1:18:43.640)
our planet, all the people in New York,
Lex Fridman (1:18:46.760)
all the organisms on our planet,
Lex Fridman (1:18:49.800)
including me here today, are not real in that sense?
Lex Fridman (1:18:54.440)
They're all part of an illusion inside of Dave Chalmers's head.
David Chalmers (1:18:59.800)
I think all this could be a simulation.
Lex Fridman (1:19:02.320)
No, but not just a simulation.
David Chalmers (1:19:04.960)
Because the simulation kind of is outside of you.
Lex Fridman (1:19:09.200)
A dream?
Lex Fridman (1:19:10.120)
What if it's all an illusion?
Lex Fridman (1:19:12.040)
Yes, a dream that you're experiencing.
Lex Fridman (1:19:14.560)
That's, it's all in your mind, right?
Lex Fridman (1:19:18.880)
Is that, can you take illusionism that far?
David Chalmers (1:19:23.040)
Well, there's illusionism about the external world
Lex Fridman (1:19:26.840)
and illusionism about consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:19:28.440)
And these might go in different.
Lex Fridman (1:19:30.200)
Illusionism about the external world
David Chalmers (1:19:31.800)
kind of takes you back to Descartes.
Lex Fridman (1:19:34.120)
And yeah, could all this be produced by an evil demon?
David Chalmers (1:19:37.400)
Descartes himself also had the dream argument.
Lex Fridman (1:19:39.560)
He said, how do you know you're not dreaming right now?
Lex Fridman (1:19:42.040)
How do you know this is not an amazing dream?
Lex Fridman (1:19:43.720)
And it's at least a possibility that yeah,
David Chalmers (1:19:46.320)
this could be some super duper complex dream
Lex Fridman (1:19:49.840)
in the next universe up.
David Chalmers (1:19:51.640)
I guess though, my attitude is that just as,
Lex Fridman (1:19:57.200)
when Descartes thought that if the evil demon was doing it,
David Chalmers (1:20:00.520)
it's not real.
Lex Fridman (1:20:01.440)
A lot of people these days say if a simulation is doing it,
David Chalmers (1:20:04.360)
it's not real.
Lex Fridman (1:20:05.560)
As I was saying before, I think even if it's a simulation,
David Chalmers (1:20:08.040)
that doesn't stop this from being real.
Lex Fridman (1:20:09.400)
It just tells us what the world is made of.
David Chalmers (1:20:11.440)
Likewise, if it's a dream,
Lex Fridman (1:20:12.960)
it could turn out that all this is like my dream
David Chalmers (1:20:15.840)
created by my brain in the next universe up.
Lex Fridman (1:20:19.080)
My own view is that wouldn't stop this physical world
David Chalmers (1:20:21.920)
from being real.
Lex Fridman (1:20:22.760)
It would turn out this cup at the most fundamental level
David Chalmers (1:20:26.040)
was made of a bit of say my consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:20:28.880)
in the dreaming mind at the next level up.
David Chalmers (1:20:31.920)
Maybe that would give you a kind of weird kind of panpsychism
Lex Fridman (1:20:35.400)
about reality, but it wouldn't show that the cup isn't real.
David Chalmers (1:20:39.360)
It would just tell us it's ultimately made of processes
Lex Fridman (1:20:42.120)
in my dreaming mind.
Lex Fridman (1:20:43.200)
So I'd resist the idea that if the physical world is a dream,
Lex Fridman (1:20:48.200)
then it's an illusion.
David Chalmers (1:20:50.640)
That's right.
Lex Fridman (1:20:52.200)
By the way, perhaps you have an interesting thought
David Chalmers (1:20:54.960)
about it.
Lex Fridman (1:20:55.800)
Why is Descartes demon or genius considered evil?
Lex Fridman (1:21:02.200)
Why couldn't have been a benevolent one
Lex Fridman (1:21:04.560)
that had the same powers?
David Chalmers (1:21:05.840)
Yeah, I mean, Descartes called it the malign genie,
Lex Fridman (1:21:08.800)
the evil genie or evil genius.
David Chalmers (1:21:12.240)
Malign, I guess was the word.
Lex Fridman (1:21:14.280)
But yeah, it's an interesting question.
David Chalmers (1:21:15.880)
I mean, a later philosophy, Barclay said,
Lex Fridman (1:21:20.600)
no, in fact, all this is done by God.
David Chalmers (1:21:25.400)
God actually supplies you all of these perceptions
Lex Fridman (1:21:30.400)
and ideas and that's how physical reality is sustained.
Lex Fridman (1:21:33.880)
And interestingly, Barclay's God is doing something
Lex Fridman (1:21:36.840)
that doesn't look so different
David Chalmers (1:21:38.160)
from what Descartes evil demon was doing.
Lex Fridman (1:21:41.200)
It's just that Descartes thought it was deception
Lex Fridman (1:21:43.560)
and Barclay thought it was not.
Lex Fridman (1:21:46.240)
And I'm actually more sympathetic to Barclay here.
David Chalmers (1:21:51.000)
Yeah, this evil demon may be trying to deceive you,
Lex Fridman (1:21:54.800)
but I think, okay, well, the evil demon
David Chalmers (1:21:56.800)
may just be working under a false philosophical theory.
Lex Fridman (1:22:01.200)
It thinks it's deceiving you, it's wrong.
David Chalmers (1:22:02.800)
It's like there's machines in the matrix.
Lex Fridman (1:22:04.200)
They thought they were deceiving you
David Chalmers (1:22:06.120)
that all this stuff is real.
Lex Fridman (1:22:07.040)
I think, no, if we're in a matrix, it's all still real.
David Chalmers (1:22:11.600)
Yeah, the philosopher O.K. Bousma had a nice story
Lex Fridman (1:22:15.080)
about this about 50 years ago, about Descartes evil demon,
David Chalmers (1:22:19.000)
where he said this demon spends all its time
Lex Fridman (1:22:21.600)
trying to fool people, but fails
David Chalmers (1:22:24.560)
because somehow all the demon ends up doing
Lex Fridman (1:22:26.600)
is constructing realities for people.
Lex Fridman (1:22:30.160)
So yeah, I think that maybe it's a very natural
Lex Fridman (1:22:33.000)
to take this view that if we're in a simulation
David Chalmers (1:22:35.040)
or evil demon scenario or something,
Lex Fridman (1:22:38.560)
then none of this is real.
Lex Fridman (1:22:40.640)
But I think it may be ultimately a philosophical mistake,
Lex Fridman (1:22:43.760)
especially if you take on board sort of the view of reality
David Chalmers (1:22:46.640)
where what matters to reality is really its structure,
Lex Fridman (1:22:50.000)
something like its mathematical structure and so on,
David Chalmers (1:22:52.800)
which seems to be the view that a lot of people take
Lex Fridman (1:22:54.600)
from contemporary physics.
Lex Fridman (1:22:56.360)
And it looks like you can find
Lex Fridman (1:22:57.960)
all that mathematical structure in a simulation,
David Chalmers (1:23:01.320)
maybe even in a dream and so on.
Lex Fridman (1:23:03.520)
So as long as that structure is real,
David Chalmers (1:23:05.400)
I would say that's enough for the physical world to be real.
Lex Fridman (1:23:08.640)
Yeah, the physical world may turn out
David Chalmers (1:23:10.040)
to be somewhat more intangible than we had thought
Lex Fridman (1:23:13.120)
and have a surprising nature of it.
David Chalmers (1:23:15.240)
We're already gotten very used to that from modern science.
Lex Fridman (1:23:19.560)
See, you've kind of alluded
David Chalmers (1:23:21.120)
that you don't have to have consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:23:23.160)
for high levels of intelligence,
Lex Fridman (1:23:25.440)
but to create truly general intelligence systems,
Lex Fridman (1:23:29.840)
AGI systems at human level intelligence
Lex Fridman (1:23:32.320)
and perhaps super human level intelligence,
Lex Fridman (1:23:34.960)
you've talked about that you feel like
David Chalmers (1:23:37.040)
that kind of thing might be very far away,
Lex Fridman (1:23:38.960)
but nevertheless, when we reached that point,
Lex Fridman (1:23:43.440)
do you think consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:23:46.040)
from an engineering perspective is needed
Lex Fridman (1:23:49.440)
or at least highly beneficial for creating an AGI system?
Lex Fridman (1:23:54.440)
Yeah, no one knows what consciousness is for functionally.
Lex Fridman (1:23:57.680)
So right now there's no specific thing we can point to
Lex Fridman (1:24:00.880)
and say, you need consciousness for that.
Lex Fridman (1:24:05.160)
So my inclination is to believe
Lex Fridman (1:24:06.560)
that in principle AGI is possible.
David Chalmers (1:24:09.320)
The very least I don't see why
Lex Fridman (1:24:11.240)
someone couldn't simulate a brain,
David Chalmers (1:24:13.240)
ultimately have a computational system
Lex Fridman (1:24:16.120)
that produces all of our behavior.
Lex Fridman (1:24:18.240)
And if that's possible,
Lex Fridman (1:24:19.440)
I'm sure vastly many other computational systems
David Chalmers (1:24:22.800)
of equal or greater sophistication are possible
Lex Fridman (1:24:27.160)
with all of our cognitive functions and more.
David Chalmers (1:24:29.400)
My inclination is to think that
Lex Fridman (1:24:32.280)
once you've got all these cognitive functions,
David Chalmers (1:24:35.400)
perception, attention, reasoning,
Lex Fridman (1:24:39.720)
introspection, language, emotion, and so on,
David Chalmers (1:24:44.440)
it's very likely you'll have consciousness as well.
Lex Fridman (1:24:49.160)
So at least it's very hard for me to see
Lex Fridman (1:24:50.600)
how you'd have a system that had all those things
Lex Fridman (1:24:52.720)
while bypassing somehow conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:24:55.640)
So just naturally it's integrated quite naturally.
Lex Fridman (1:25:00.160)
There's a lot of overlap about the kind of function
David Chalmers (1:25:02.960)
that required to achieve each of those things
Lex Fridman (1:25:04.840)
that's, so you can't disentangle them
David Chalmers (1:25:07.640)
even when you're recreating.
Lex Fridman (1:25:08.480)
It seems to, at least in us,
Lex Fridman (1:25:09.680)
but we don't know what the causal role of consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:25:13.320)
in the physical world, what it does.
David Chalmers (1:25:14.600)
I mean, just say it turns out
Lex Fridman (1:25:15.960)
consciousness does something very specific
David Chalmers (1:25:17.720)
in the physical world like collapsing wave functions
Lex Fridman (1:25:20.560)
as on one common interpretation of quantum mechanics.
David Chalmers (1:25:24.240)
Then ultimately we might find some place
Lex Fridman (1:25:25.680)
where it actually makes a difference
Lex Fridman (1:25:27.560)
and we could say, ah,
Lex Fridman (1:25:28.680)
here is where in collapsing wave functions
David Chalmers (1:25:30.520)
it's driving the behavior of a system.
Lex Fridman (1:25:32.760)
And maybe it could even turn out that for AGI,
David Chalmers (1:25:37.080)
you'd need something playing that.
Lex Fridman (1:25:39.200)
I mean, if you wanted to connect this to free will,
David Chalmers (1:25:41.200)
some people think consciousness collapsing wave functions,
Lex Fridman (1:25:43.520)
that would be how the conscious mind exerts effect
David Chalmers (1:25:47.640)
on the physical world and exerts its free will.
Lex Fridman (1:25:50.440)
And maybe it could turn out that any AGI
David Chalmers (1:25:53.520)
that didn't utilize that mechanism would be limited
Lex Fridman (1:25:56.680)
in the kinds of functionality that it had.
David Chalmers (1:25:59.760)
I don't myself find that plausible.
Lex Fridman (1:26:02.240)
I think probably that functionality could be simulated.
Lex Fridman (1:26:05.000)
But you can imagine once we had a very specific idea
Lex Fridman (1:26:07.760)
about the role of consciousness in the physical world,
David Chalmers (1:26:10.440)
this would have some impact on the capacity of AGI's.
Lex Fridman (1:26:14.080)
And if it was a role that could not be duplicated elsewhere,
David Chalmers (1:26:17.880)
then we'd have to find some way to either
Lex Fridman (1:26:22.560)
get consciousness in the system to play that role
David Chalmers (1:26:24.640)
or to simulate it.
Lex Fridman (1:26:25.520)
If we can isolate a particular role to consciousness,
David Chalmers (1:26:29.080)
of course, it seems like an incredibly difficult thing.
Lex Fridman (1:26:35.120)
Do you have worries about existential threats
Lex Fridman (1:26:39.600)
of conscious intelligent beings that are not us?
Lex Fridman (1:26:46.240)
So certainly, I'm sure you're worried about us
David Chalmers (1:26:50.640)
from an existential threat perspective,
Lex Fridman (1:26:52.840)
but outside of us, AI systems.
David Chalmers (1:26:55.400)
There's a couple of different kinds
Lex Fridman (1:26:56.440)
of existential threats here.
David Chalmers (1:26:58.160)
One is an existential threat to consciousness generally.
Lex Fridman (1:27:01.400)
I mean, yes, I care about humans
Lex Fridman (1:27:04.000)
and the survival of humans and so on,
Lex Fridman (1:27:05.960)
but just say it turns out that eventually we're replaced
David Chalmers (1:27:10.360)
by some artificial beings that aren't humans,
Lex Fridman (1:27:12.680)
but are somehow our successors.
David Chalmers (1:27:15.480)
They still have good lives.
Lex Fridman (1:27:16.800)
They still do interesting and wonderful things
David Chalmers (1:27:19.200)
with the universe.
Lex Fridman (1:27:20.600)
I don't think that's not so bad.
David Chalmers (1:27:23.440)
That's just our successors.
Lex Fridman (1:27:24.560)
We were one stage in evolution.
David Chalmers (1:27:26.480)
Something different, maybe better came next.
Lex Fridman (1:27:29.720)
If on the other hand, all of consciousness was wiped out,
David Chalmers (1:27:33.280)
that would be a very serious moral disaster.
Lex Fridman (1:27:36.760)
One way that could happen is by all intelligent life
David Chalmers (1:27:40.880)
being wiped out.
Lex Fridman (1:27:42.080)
And many people think that, yeah,
David Chalmers (1:27:43.320)
once you get to humans and AIs and amazing sophistication
Lex Fridman (1:27:47.680)
where everyone has got the ability to create weapons
David Chalmers (1:27:51.000)
that can destroy the whole universe just by pressing a button,
Lex Fridman (1:27:55.560)
then maybe it's inevitable all intelligent life will die out.
David Chalmers (1:28:00.640)
That would certainly be a disaster.
Lex Fridman (1:28:03.720)
And we've got to think very hard about how to avoid that.
Lex Fridman (1:28:06.040)
But yeah, another interesting kind of disaster
Lex Fridman (1:28:08.040)
is that maybe intelligent life is not wiped out,
Lex Fridman (1:28:12.160)
but all consciousness is wiped out.
Lex Fridman (1:28:14.920)
So just say your thought,
David Chalmers (1:28:16.480)
unlike what I was saying a moment ago,
Lex Fridman (1:28:18.000)
that there are two different kinds of intelligent systems,
David Chalmers (1:28:21.400)
some which are conscious and some which are not.
Lex Fridman (1:28:25.400)
And just say it turns out that we create AGI
David Chalmers (1:28:28.840)
with a high degree of intelligence,
Lex Fridman (1:28:30.800)
meaning high degree of sophistication and its behavior,
Lex Fridman (1:28:34.080)
but with no consciousness at all.
Lex Fridman (1:28:37.080)
That AGI could take over the world maybe,
Lex Fridman (1:28:39.680)
but then there'd be no consciousness in this world.
Lex Fridman (1:28:42.760)
This would be a world of zombies.
David Chalmers (1:28:44.400)
Some people have called this the zombie apocalypse
Lex Fridman (1:28:48.160)
because it's an apocalypse for consciousness.
David Chalmers (1:28:50.240)
Consciousness is gone.
Lex Fridman (1:28:51.200)
You've merely got this super intelligent,
David Chalmers (1:28:53.120)
nonconscious robots.
Lex Fridman (1:28:54.560)
And I would say that's a moral disaster in the same way,
David Chalmers (1:28:58.040)
in almost the same way that the world
Lex Fridman (1:28:59.840)
with no intelligent life is a moral disaster.
David Chalmers (1:29:02.240)
All value and meaning may be gone from that world.
Lex Fridman (1:29:06.720)
So these are both threats to watch out for.
David Chalmers (1:29:09.000)
Now, my own view is if you get super intelligence,
Lex Fridman (1:29:11.720)
you're almost certainly gonna bring consciousness with it.
Lex Fridman (1:29:13.720)
So I hope that's not gonna happen.
Lex Fridman (1:29:15.840)
But of course, I don't understand consciousness.
David Chalmers (1:29:18.400)
No one understands consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:29:20.240)
This is one reason for,
David Chalmers (1:29:21.680)
this is one reason at least among many
Lex Fridman (1:29:23.400)
for thinking very seriously about consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:29:25.520)
and thinking about the kind of future
Lex Fridman (1:29:27.960)
we want to create in a world with humans and or AIs.
Lex Fridman (1:29:33.160)
How do you feel about the possibility
Lex Fridman (1:29:35.760)
if consciousness so naturally does come with AGI systems
Lex Fridman (1:29:39.920)
that we are just a step in the evolution?
Lex Fridman (1:29:42.600)
That we will be just something, a blimp on the record
David Chalmers (1:29:47.240)
that'll be studied in books
Lex Fridman (1:29:49.040)
by the AGI systems centuries from now?
David Chalmers (1:29:51.720)
I mean, I think I'd probably be okay with that,
Lex Fridman (1:29:55.400)
especially if somehow humans are continuous with AGI.
David Chalmers (1:29:58.480)
I mean, I think something like this is inevitable.
Lex Fridman (1:30:01.560)
The very least humans are gonna be transformed.
David Chalmers (1:30:03.960)
We're gonna be augmented by technology.
Lex Fridman (1:30:06.480)
It's already happening in all kinds of ways.
David Chalmers (1:30:08.840)
We're gonna be transformed by technology
Lex Fridman (1:30:11.520)
where our brains are gonna be uploaded
Lex Fridman (1:30:13.160)
and computationally enhanced.
Lex Fridman (1:30:15.880)
And eventually that line between what's a human
Lex Fridman (1:30:18.040)
and what's an AI may be kind of hard to draw.
Lex Fridman (1:30:23.400)
How much does it matter, for example,
David Chalmers (1:30:24.800)
that some future being a thousand years from now
Lex Fridman (1:30:28.680)
that somehow descended from us actually still has biology?
David Chalmers (1:30:32.120)
I think it would be nice if you kind of point
Lex Fridman (1:30:34.200)
to its cognitive system, point to some parts
David Chalmers (1:30:36.160)
that had some roots in us and trace a continuous line there.
Lex Fridman (1:30:40.840)
That would be selfishly nice for me to think that,
David Chalmers (1:30:43.720)
okay, I'm connected to this thread line
Lex Fridman (1:30:46.480)
through the future of the world,
Lex Fridman (1:30:48.120)
but if it turns out, okay, there's a jump there.
Lex Fridman (1:30:50.600)
They found a better way to design cognitive systems.
David Chalmers (1:30:53.760)
They designed a wholly new kind of thing.
Lex Fridman (1:30:55.440)
And the only line is some causal chain of designing
Lex Fridman (1:30:59.800)
and systems that design better systems.
Lex Fridman (1:31:03.120)
Is that so much worse?
David Chalmers (1:31:04.800)
I don't know.
Lex Fridman (1:31:05.640)
We're still at least part of a causal chain of design.
Lex Fridman (1:31:08.360)
And yes, they're not humans,
Lex Fridman (1:31:09.560)
but still they're our successes.
David Chalmers (1:31:11.640)
So, I mean, ultimately I think it's probably inevitable
Lex Fridman (1:31:14.440)
that something like that will happen.
Lex Fridman (1:31:16.760)
And at least we were part of the process.
Lex Fridman (1:31:19.920)
It'd be nice if they still cared enough about us
David Chalmers (1:31:23.400)
to maybe to engage with our arguments.
Lex Fridman (1:31:28.240)
I'm really hoping that the AGI's are gonna solve
David Chalmers (1:31:30.080)
all the problems of philosophy.
Lex Fridman (1:31:31.760)
They'll come back and read all this crappy work
David Chalmers (1:31:35.040)
for the 20th and 21st century,
Lex Fridman (1:31:36.480)
hard problem of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:31:37.680)
And here is why they got it wrong.
Lex Fridman (1:31:39.960)
And so, and if that happened,
David Chalmers (1:31:41.000)
then I'd really feel like I was part of
Lex Fridman (1:31:42.360)
at least an intellectual process over centuries.
Lex Fridman (1:31:44.960)
And that would be kind of cool.
Lex Fridman (1:31:45.960)
Well, I'm pretty sure they would clone
David Chalmers (1:31:48.520)
or they would recreate David Chalmers
Lex Fridman (1:31:50.960)
and for the fun of it,
David Chalmers (1:31:52.480)
sort of bring back other philosophers.
Lex Fridman (1:31:55.160)
Yeah, bring back Descartes.
David Chalmers (1:31:56.200)
Descartes and just put them in a room and just watch.
Lex Fridman (1:31:58.800)
It'll be a Netflix of the future show
David Chalmers (1:32:02.040)
where you bring philosophers from different human,
Lex Fridman (1:32:04.600)
100% human philosophers from previous generations,
David Chalmers (1:32:07.680)
put them in a room and see them.
Lex Fridman (1:32:09.440)
I am totally up for that.
David Chalmers (1:32:11.160)
Simulators, AGI's of the future,
Lex Fridman (1:32:14.040)
if you're watching this podcast, do that.
David Chalmers (1:32:17.680)
I would like to be recreated and ending out with Descartes.
Lex Fridman (1:32:20.880)
Where Descartes would be the first,
David Chalmers (1:32:22.640)
if you could hang out as part of such a TV show
Lex Fridman (1:32:26.120)
with a philosopher that's no longer with us from long ago,
Lex Fridman (1:32:30.880)
who would you choose?
Lex Fridman (1:32:33.200)
Descartes would have to be right up there.
David Chalmers (1:32:34.760)
Oh, actually a couple of months ago,
Lex Fridman (1:32:36.840)
I got to have a conversation with Descartes,
David Chalmers (1:32:39.000)
an actor who's actually a philosopher
Lex Fridman (1:32:40.760)
came out on stage playing Descartes.
David Chalmers (1:32:42.800)
I didn't know this was gonna happen.
Lex Fridman (1:32:43.880)
And I just after I gave a talk
Lex Fridman (1:32:46.200)
and told me about how my ideas were crap
Lex Fridman (1:32:50.120)
and all derived from him.
Lex Fridman (1:32:51.560)
And so we had a long argument.
Lex Fridman (1:32:53.440)
This was great.
David Chalmers (1:32:54.680)
I would love to see what Descartes would think about AI,
Lex Fridman (1:32:57.400)
for example, and the modern neuroscience.
Lex Fridman (1:32:59.520)
And so I suspect not too much would surprise him,
Lex Fridman (1:33:01.800)
but yeah, William James,
David Chalmers (1:33:07.120)
for a psychologist of consciousness,
Lex Fridman (1:33:08.720)
I think James was probably the richest.
David Chalmers (1:33:14.000)
But, oh, there are Immanuel Kant.
Lex Fridman (1:33:17.120)
I never really understood what he was up to
David Chalmers (1:33:19.120)
if I got to actually talk to him about some of this.
Lex Fridman (1:33:22.760)
Hey, there was Princess Elizabeth who talked with Descartes
Lex Fridman (1:33:25.720)
and who really got at the problems
Lex Fridman (1:33:28.760)
of how Descartes ideas of a nonphysical mind
David Chalmers (1:33:32.800)
interacting with the physical body couldn't really work.
Lex Fridman (1:33:37.240)
She's been kind of, most philosophers
David Chalmers (1:33:39.040)
think she's been proved right.
Lex Fridman (1:33:40.040)
So maybe put me in a room with Descartes
Lex Fridman (1:33:42.560)
and Princess Elizabeth and we can all argue it out.
Lex Fridman (1:33:47.840)
What kind of future?
Lex Fridman (1:33:49.360)
So we talked about zombies, a concerning future,
Lex Fridman (1:33:53.280)
but what kind of future excites you?
Lex Fridman (1:33:56.180)
What do you think if we look forward sort of,
Lex Fridman (1:34:00.480)
we're at the very early stages
David Chalmers (1:34:02.160)
of understanding consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:34:04.080)
And we're now at the early stages
David Chalmers (1:34:05.840)
of being able to engineer complex, interesting systems
Lex Fridman (1:34:10.120)
that have degrees of intelligence.
Lex Fridman (1:34:11.560)
And maybe one day we'll have degrees of consciousness,
Lex Fridman (1:34:14.240)
maybe be able to upload brains,
David Chalmers (1:34:17.120)
all those possibilities, virtual reality.
Lex Fridman (1:34:20.000)
Is there a particular aspect to this future world
Lex Fridman (1:34:22.640)
that just excites you?
Lex Fridman (1:34:24.880)
Well, I think there are lots of different aspects.
David Chalmers (1:34:26.360)
I mean, frankly, I want it to hurry up and happen.
Lex Fridman (1:34:29.480)
It's like, yeah, we've had some progress lately in AI and VR,
Lex Fridman (1:34:33.120)
but in the grand scheme of things, it's still kind of slow.
Lex Fridman (1:34:35.960)
The changes are not yet transformative.
Lex Fridman (1:34:38.200)
And I'm in my fifties, I've only got so long left.
Lex Fridman (1:34:42.080)
I'd like to see really serious AI in my lifetime
Lex Fridman (1:34:45.640)
and really serious virtual worlds.
Lex Fridman (1:34:48.240)
Cause yeah, once people,
David Chalmers (1:34:49.680)
I would like to be able to hang out in a virtual reality,
Lex Fridman (1:34:52.040)
which is richer than this reality
David Chalmers (1:34:56.520)
to really get to inhabit fundamentally different kinds
Lex Fridman (1:35:00.320)
of spaces.
David Chalmers (1:35:02.160)
Well, I would very much like to be able to upload
Lex Fridman (1:35:05.000)
my mind onto a computer.
Lex Fridman (1:35:07.680)
So maybe I don't have to die.
Lex Fridman (1:35:11.440)
If this is maybe gradually replaced my neurons
David Chalmers (1:35:14.200)
with a Silicon chips and inhabit a computer.
Lex Fridman (1:35:17.360)
Selfishly, that would be wonderful.
David Chalmers (1:35:19.320)
I suspect I'm not gonna quite get there in my lifetime,
Lex Fridman (1:35:24.400)
but once that's possible,
David Chalmers (1:35:26.520)
then you've got the possibility of transforming
Lex Fridman (1:35:28.000)
your consciousness in remarkable ways,
David Chalmers (1:35:30.200)
augmenting it, enhancing it.
Lex Fridman (1:35:33.280)
So let me ask then,
David Chalmers (1:35:34.440)
if such a system is a possibility within your lifetime
Lex Fridman (1:35:39.560)
and you were given the opportunity to become immortal
Lex Fridman (1:35:44.200)
in this kind of way, would you choose to be immortal?
Lex Fridman (1:35:50.800)
Yes, I totally would.
David Chalmers (1:35:52.400)
I know some people say they couldn't,
Lex Fridman (1:35:54.880)
it'd be awful to be immortal, be so boring or something.
David Chalmers (1:35:59.800)
I don't see, I really don't see why this might be.
Lex Fridman (1:36:04.800)
I mean, even if it's just ordinary life that continues,
David Chalmers (1:36:07.200)
ordinary life is not so bad.
Lex Fridman (1:36:09.520)
But furthermore, I kind of suspect that,
David Chalmers (1:36:12.840)
if the universe is gonna go on forever or indefinitely,
Lex Fridman (1:36:16.120)
it's gonna continue to be interesting.
David Chalmers (1:36:19.240)
I don't think your view was that we just have to get
Lex Fridman (1:36:22.120)
this one romantic point of interest now
Lex Fridman (1:36:24.160)
and afterwards it's all gonna be boring,
Lex Fridman (1:36:26.160)
super intelligent stasis.
David Chalmers (1:36:28.440)
I guess my vision is more like,
Lex Fridman (1:36:30.000)
no, it's gonna continue to be infinitely interesting.
David Chalmers (1:36:32.640)
Something like as you go up the set theoretic hierarchy,
Lex Fridman (1:36:36.120)
you go from the finite cardinals to Aleph zero
Lex Fridman (1:36:42.520)
and then through there to all the Aleph one and Aleph two
Lex Fridman (1:36:46.000)
and maybe the continuum and you keep taking power sets
Lex Fridman (1:36:49.840)
and in set theory, they've got these results
Lex Fridman (1:36:51.920)
that actually all this is fundamentally unpredictable.
David Chalmers (1:36:54.760)
It doesn't follow any simple computational patterns.
Lex Fridman (1:36:57.360)
There's new levels of creativity
David Chalmers (1:36:58.920)
as the set theoretic universe expands and expands.
Lex Fridman (1:37:01.880)
I guess that's my future.
David Chalmers (1:37:03.320)
That's my vision of the future.
Lex Fridman (1:37:04.840)
That's my optimistic vision
David Chalmers (1:37:06.000)
of the future of super intelligence.
Lex Fridman (1:37:08.040)
It will keep expanding and keep growing,
Lex Fridman (1:37:09.760)
but still being fundamentally unpredictable at many points.
Lex Fridman (1:37:12.880)
I mean, yes, this creates all kinds of worries
David Chalmers (1:37:15.280)
like couldn't all be fragile and be destroyed at any point.
Lex Fridman (1:37:18.960)
So we're gonna need a solution to that problem.
Lex Fridman (1:37:21.160)
But if we get to stipulate that I'm immortal,
Lex Fridman (1:37:23.360)
well, I hope that I'm not just immortal and stuck
David Chalmers (1:37:25.960)
in the single world forever,
Lex Fridman (1:37:27.880)
but I'm immortal and get to take part in this process
David Chalmers (1:37:30.960)
of going through infinitely rich, created futures.
Lex Fridman (1:37:34.560)
Rich, unpredictable, exciting.
David Chalmers (1:37:36.480)
Well, I think I speak for a lot of people in saying,
Lex Fridman (1:37:39.880)
I hope you do become immortal and there'll be
David Chalmers (1:37:41.840)
that Netflix show, The Future,
Lex Fridman (1:37:43.680)
where you get to argue with Descartes,
David Chalmers (1:37:47.480)
perhaps for all eternity.
Lex Fridman (1:37:49.800)
So David, it was an honor.
David Chalmers (1:37:51.480)
Thank you so much for talking today.
Lex Fridman (1:37:52.920)
Thanks, it was a pleasure.
David Chalmers (1:37:55.040)
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Lex Fridman (1:37:57.160)
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David Chalmers (1:38:00.040)
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Lex Fridman (1:38:02.680)
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David Chalmers (1:38:05.440)
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Lex Fridman (1:38:08.680)
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David Chalmers (1:38:12.120)
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Lex Fridman (1:38:14.920)
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David Chalmers (1:38:16.760)
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Lex Fridman (1:38:19.200)
or simply connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (1:38:23.120)
And now let me leave you with some words
Lex Fridman (1:38:24.960)
from David Chalmers.
David Chalmers (1:38:26.960)
Materialism is a beautiful and compelling view of the world,
Lex Fridman (1:38:30.760)
but to account for consciousness,
David Chalmers (1:38:32.240)
we have to go beyond the resources it provides.
Lex Fridman (1:38:35.240)
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
David Chalmers (20:01.680)
which is outside the virtual world.
Lex Fridman (20:03.560)
Maybe I'll strap on my VR headset or just hang out
David Chalmers (20:07.520)
in a virtual world on a screen, but my brain
Lex Fridman (20:12.920)
and then my physical environment might be simulated
David Chalmers (20:16.560)
if I'm in a virtual world, but right now,
Lex Fridman (20:18.560)
there's no attempt to simulate my brain.
David Chalmers (20:21.320)
There might be some non player characters
Lex Fridman (20:24.120)
in these virtual worlds that have simulated
David Chalmers (20:27.440)
cognitive systems of certain kinds
Lex Fridman (20:29.040)
that dictate their behavior, but mostly,
David Chalmers (20:31.280)
they're pretty simple right now.
Lex Fridman (20:33.080)
I mean, some people are trying to combine,
David Chalmers (20:34.640)
put a bit of AI in their non player characters
Lex Fridman (20:36.900)
to make them smarter, but for now,
David Chalmers (20:41.340)
inside virtual world, the actual thinking
Lex Fridman (20:43.720)
is interestingly distinct from the physics
David Chalmers (20:46.000)
of those virtual worlds.
Lex Fridman (20:47.180)
In a way, actually, I like to think this is kind of
David Chalmers (20:48.920)
reminiscent of the way that Descartes
Lex Fridman (20:50.480)
thought our physical world was.
David Chalmers (20:52.280)
There's physics, and there's the mind,
Lex Fridman (20:54.400)
and they're separate.
David Chalmers (20:55.240)
Now we think the mind is somehow connected
Lex Fridman (20:58.800)
to physics pretty deeply, but in these virtual worlds,
David Chalmers (21:01.100)
there's a physics of a virtual world,
Lex Fridman (21:03.000)
and then there's this brain which is totally
David Chalmers (21:04.840)
outside the virtual world that controls it
Lex Fridman (21:06.880)
and interacts it when anyone exercises agency
David Chalmers (21:10.520)
in a video game, that's actually somebody
Lex Fridman (21:12.360)
outside the virtual world moving a controller,
David Chalmers (21:14.920)
controlling the interaction of things
Lex Fridman (21:16.680)
inside the virtual world.
Lex Fridman (21:18.240)
So right now, in virtual worlds,
Lex Fridman (21:20.460)
the mind is somehow outside the world,
Lex Fridman (21:22.360)
but you could imagine in the future,
Lex Fridman (21:25.040)
once we have developed serious AI,
David Chalmers (21:29.080)
artificial general intelligence, and so on,
Lex Fridman (21:31.560)
then we could come to virtual worlds
David Chalmers (21:34.440)
which have enough sophistication,
Lex Fridman (21:35.720)
you could actually simulate a brain
David Chalmers (21:38.040)
or have a genuine AGI, which would then presumably
Lex Fridman (21:42.920)
be able to act in equally sophisticated ways,
David Chalmers (21:45.880)
maybe even more sophisticated ways,
Lex Fridman (21:47.880)
inside the virtual world to how it might
David Chalmers (21:50.520)
in the physical world, and then the question's
Lex Fridman (21:52.400)
gonna come along, that would be kind of a VR,
David Chalmers (21:56.040)
virtual world internal intelligence,
Lex Fridman (21:59.520)
and then the question is could they have consciousness,
David Chalmers (22:01.720)
experience, intelligence, free will,
Lex Fridman (22:04.720)
all the things that we have, and again,
David Chalmers (22:06.520)
my view is I don't see why not.
Lex Fridman (22:08.840)
To linger on it a little bit, I find virtual reality really
David Chalmers (22:13.160)
incredibly powerful, just even the crude virtual reality
Lex Fridman (22:15.880)
we have now of perhaps there's psychological effects
David Chalmers (22:21.800)
that make some people more amenable
Lex Fridman (22:23.960)
to virtual worlds than others, but I find myself
David Chalmers (22:26.260)
wanting to stay in virtual worlds for the most part.
Lex Fridman (22:28.360)
You do?
David Chalmers (22:29.200)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (22:30.020)
With a headset or on a desktop?
David Chalmers (22:32.080)
No, with a headset.
Lex Fridman (22:33.020)
Really interesting, because I am totally addicted
David Chalmers (22:35.640)
to using the internet and things on a desktop,
Lex Fridman (22:40.680)
but when it comes to VR, with a headset,
David Chalmers (22:43.040)
I don't typically use it for more than 10 or 20 minutes.
Lex Fridman (22:46.140)
There's something just slightly aversive about it, I find,
Lex Fridman (22:48.760)
so I don't, right now, even though I have Oculus Rift
Lex Fridman (22:52.120)
and Oculus Quest and HTC Vive and Samsung, this and that.
David Chalmers (22:55.800)
You just don't wanna stay in that world for long.
Lex Fridman (22:57.360)
Not for extended periods.
David Chalmers (22:58.760)
You actually find yourself hanging out in that.
Lex Fridman (23:01.000)
Something about, it's both a combination
David Chalmers (23:03.660)
of just imagination and considering the possibilities
Lex Fridman (23:08.000)
of where this goes in the future.
David Chalmers (23:10.640)
It feels like I want to almost prepare my brain for it.
Lex Fridman (23:17.000)
I wanna explore sort of Disneyland
David Chalmers (23:19.680)
when it's first being built in the early days,
Lex Fridman (23:23.700)
and it feels like I'm walking around
David Chalmers (23:27.400)
almost imagining the possibilities,
Lex Fridman (23:31.420)
and something through that process allows my mind
David Chalmers (23:33.840)
to really enter into that world,
Lex Fridman (23:36.020)
but you say that the brain is external to that virtual world.
David Chalmers (23:41.940)
It is, strictly speaking, true, but...
Lex Fridman (23:46.600)
If you're in VR and you do brain surgery on an avatar,
Lex Fridman (23:50.600)
and you're gonna open up that skull,
Lex Fridman (23:51.800)
what are you gonna find?
David Chalmers (23:53.000)
Sorry, nothing there.
Lex Fridman (23:53.840)
Nothing.
David Chalmers (23:54.680)
The brain is elsewhere.
Lex Fridman (23:55.880)
You don't think it's possible to kind of separate them,
Lex Fridman (23:59.520)
and I don't mean in a sense like Descartes,
Lex Fridman (24:02.960)
like a hard separation, but basically,
Lex Fridman (24:06.720)
do you think it's possible with the brain outside
Lex Fridman (24:09.600)
of the virtual rhythm, when you're wearing a headset,
Lex Fridman (24:14.920)
create a new consciousness for prolonged periods of time?
Lex Fridman (24:19.840)
Really feel, like really, like forget
David Chalmers (24:24.660)
that your brain is outside.
Lex Fridman (24:26.280)
So this is, okay, this is gonna be the case
David Chalmers (24:27.800)
where the brain is still outside.
Lex Fridman (24:29.200)
It's still outside.
Lex Fridman (24:30.040)
But could living in the VR, I mean,
Lex Fridman (24:32.120)
we already find this, right, with video games.
David Chalmers (24:35.120)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (24:35.960)
They're completely immersive, and you get taken up
David Chalmers (24:39.200)
by living in those worlds,
Lex Fridman (24:40.640)
and it becomes your reality for a while.
Lex Fridman (24:43.200)
So they're not completely immersive,
Lex Fridman (24:44.760)
they're just very immersive.
David Chalmers (24:46.040)
Completely immersive.
Lex Fridman (24:46.880)
You don't forget the external world, no.
David Chalmers (24:48.800)
Exactly, so that's what I'm asking.
Lex Fridman (24:50.920)
Do you think it's almost possible
Lex Fridman (24:52.220)
to really forget the external world?
Lex Fridman (24:55.700)
Really, really immerse yourself.
Lex Fridman (24:58.440)
To forget completely?
Lex Fridman (24:59.840)
Why would we forget?
David Chalmers (25:00.680)
We got pretty good memories.
Lex Fridman (25:02.200)
Maybe you can stop paying attention to the external world,
Lex Fridman (25:06.000)
but this already happens a lot.
Lex Fridman (25:07.540)
I go to work, and maybe I'm not paying attention
David Chalmers (25:10.000)
to my home life.
Lex Fridman (25:11.080)
I go to a movie, and I'm immersed in that.
Lex Fridman (25:14.520)
So that degree of immersion, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (25:17.100)
But we still have the capacity to remember it,
David Chalmers (25:19.640)
to completely forget the external world.
Lex Fridman (25:21.960)
I'm thinking that would probably take some,
David Chalmers (25:23.920)
I don't know, some pretty serious drugs or something
Lex Fridman (25:25.760)
to make your brain do that.
Lex Fridman (25:27.600)
Is that possible?
Lex Fridman (25:28.960)
So, I mean, I guess what I'm getting at
David Chalmers (25:31.040)
is consciousness truly a property
Lex Fridman (25:35.640)
that's tied to the physical brain?
David Chalmers (25:41.040)
Or can you create sort of different offspring,
Lex Fridman (25:45.000)
copies of consciousnesses based on the worlds
Lex Fridman (25:47.600)
that you enter?
Lex Fridman (25:49.400)
Well, the way we're doing it now,
David Chalmers (25:51.560)
at least with a standard VR, there's just one brain.
Lex Fridman (25:54.900)
Interacts with the physical world.
David Chalmers (25:56.640)
Plays a video game, puts on a video headset,
Lex Fridman (25:59.360)
interacts with this virtual world.
Lex Fridman (26:01.720)
And I think we'd typically say there's one consciousness here
Lex Fridman (26:04.800)
that nonetheless undergoes different environments,
David Chalmers (26:07.520)
takes on different characters in different environments.
Lex Fridman (26:11.880)
This is already something that happens
David Chalmers (26:13.160)
in the nonvirtual world.
Lex Fridman (26:14.320)
I might interact one way in my home life,
David Chalmers (26:17.480)
my work life, my social life, and so on.
Lex Fridman (26:21.200)
So at the very least, that will happen
David Chalmers (26:23.960)
in a virtual world very naturally.
Lex Fridman (26:25.780)
People sometimes adopt the character of avatars
David Chalmers (26:30.360)
very different from themselves,
Lex Fridman (26:32.400)
maybe even a different gender, different race,
David Chalmers (26:34.800)
different social background.
Lex Fridman (26:37.000)
So that much is certainly possible.
David Chalmers (26:38.800)
I would see that as a single consciousness
Lex Fridman (26:41.160)
is taking on different personas.
David Chalmers (26:43.360)
If you want literal splitting of consciousness
Lex Fridman (26:46.280)
into multiple copies,
David Chalmers (26:47.400)
I think it's gonna take something more radical than that.
Lex Fridman (26:50.640)
Like maybe you can run different simulations of your brain
David Chalmers (26:54.360)
in different realities
Lex Fridman (26:56.080)
and then expose them to different histories.
Lex Fridman (26:57.880)
And then you'd split yourself
Lex Fridman (27:00.160)
into 10 different simulated copies,
David Chalmers (27:01.900)
which then undergo different environments
Lex Fridman (27:04.120)
and then ultimately do become 10
David Chalmers (27:05.680)
very different consciousnesses.
Lex Fridman (27:07.720)
Maybe that could happen,
Lex Fridman (27:08.600)
but now we're not talking about something
Lex Fridman (27:10.440)
that's possible in the near term.
David Chalmers (27:12.240)
We're gonna have to have brain simulations
Lex Fridman (27:14.040)
and AGI for that to happen.
David Chalmers (27:17.400)
Got it.
Lex Fridman (27:18.240)
So before any of that happens,
David Chalmers (27:20.200)
it's fundamentally you see it as a singular consciousness,
Lex Fridman (27:23.760)
even though it's experiencing different environments,
David Chalmers (27:26.400)
virtual or not,
Lex Fridman (27:27.780)
it's still connected to same set of memories,
David Chalmers (27:30.480)
same set of experiences and therefore,
Lex Fridman (27:32.760)
one sort of joint conscious system.
David Chalmers (27:38.240)
Yeah, or at least no more multiple
Lex Fridman (27:40.560)
than the kind of multiple consciousness
David Chalmers (27:42.140)
that we get from inhabiting different environments
Lex Fridman (27:45.000)
in a non virtual world.
Lex Fridman (27:46.720)
So you said as a child,
Lex Fridman (27:48.760)
you were a music color synesthete.
Lex Fridman (27:53.440)
So where songs had colors for you.
Lex Fridman (27:56.440)
So what songs had what colors?
David Chalmers (27:59.760)
You know, this is funny.
Lex Fridman (28:00.960)
I didn't pay much attention to this at the time,
Lex Fridman (28:04.040)
but I'd listen to a piece of music
Lex Fridman (28:05.340)
and I'd get some kind of imagery
David Chalmers (28:07.560)
of a kind of color.
Lex Fridman (28:11.400)
The weird thing is mostly they were kind of murky,
David Chalmers (28:16.120)
dark greens and olive browns
Lex Fridman (28:18.560)
and the colors weren't all that interesting.
David Chalmers (28:21.600)
I don't know what the reason is.
Lex Fridman (28:22.520)
I mean, my theory is that maybe it's like different chords
Lex Fridman (28:25.280)
and tones provided different colors
Lex Fridman (28:27.720)
and they all tended to get mixed together
David Chalmers (28:29.280)
into these somewhat uninteresting browns and greens.
Lex Fridman (28:33.200)
But every now and then there'd be something
David Chalmers (28:35.480)
that had a really pure color.
Lex Fridman (28:37.360)
So there's just a few that I remember.
David Chalmers (28:39.360)
There was a Here, There and Everywhere by the Beatles
Lex Fridman (28:42.440)
was bright red and has this very distinctive tonality
Lex Fridman (28:46.360)
and it's called structure at the beginning.
Lex Fridman (28:49.680)
So that was bright red.
David Chalmers (28:50.880)
There was this song by the Alan Parsons Project
Lex Fridman (28:53.960)
called Ammonia Avenue that was kind of a pure, a pure blue.
David Chalmers (28:59.720)
Anyway, I've got no idea how this happened.
Lex Fridman (29:02.080)
I didn't even pay that much attention
David Chalmers (29:03.120)
until it went away when I was about 20.
Lex Fridman (29:05.400)
This synesthesia often goes away.
Lex Fridman (29:07.480)
So is it purely just the perception of a particular color
Lex Fridman (29:10.960)
or was there a positive or negative experience?
David Chalmers (29:14.320)
Like was blue associated with a positive
Lex Fridman (29:16.400)
and red with a negative?
David Chalmers (29:17.920)
Or is it simply the perception of color
Lex Fridman (29:20.960)
associated with some characteristic of the song?
David Chalmers (29:23.440)
For me, I don't remember a lot of association
Lex Fridman (29:25.760)
with emotion or with value.
David Chalmers (29:28.320)
It was just this kind of weird and interesting fact.
Lex Fridman (29:30.920)
I mean, at the beginning, I thought this was something
David Chalmers (29:32.360)
that happened to everyone, songs of colors.
Lex Fridman (29:35.000)
Maybe I mentioned it once or twice and people said, nope.
David Chalmers (29:40.240)
I thought it was kind of cool when there was one
Lex Fridman (29:42.560)
that had one of these especially pure colors,
Lex Fridman (29:44.680)
but only much later once I became a grad student
Lex Fridman (29:48.200)
thinking about the mind that I read about this phenomenon
David Chalmers (29:50.600)
called synesthesia and I was like, hey, that's what I had.
Lex Fridman (29:53.960)
And now I occasionally talk about it in my classes,
David Chalmers (29:56.560)
in intro class and it still happens sometimes.
Lex Fridman (29:58.600)
A student comes up and says, hey, I have that.
David Chalmers (30:01.120)
I never knew about that.
Lex Fridman (30:01.960)
I never knew it had a name.
David Chalmers (30:04.520)
You said that it went away at age 20 or so.
Lex Fridman (30:08.080)
And that you have a journal entry from around then saying,
David Chalmers (30:13.080)
songs don't have colors anymore.
Lex Fridman (30:15.240)
What happened?
Lex Fridman (30:16.080)
What happened?
Lex Fridman (30:16.920)
Yeah, it was definitely sad that it was gone.
David Chalmers (30:18.800)
In retrospect, it was like, hey, that's cool.
Lex Fridman (30:20.680)
The colors have gone.
Lex Fridman (30:21.920)
Yeah, can you think about that for a little bit?
Lex Fridman (30:25.000)
Do you miss those experiences?
David Chalmers (30:27.000)
Because it's a fundamentally different set of experiences
Lex Fridman (30:31.720)
that you no longer have.
Lex Fridman (30:35.120)
Or is it just a nice thing to have had?
Lex Fridman (30:38.360)
You don't see them as that fundamentally different
David Chalmers (30:40.640)
than you visiting a new country and experiencing
Lex Fridman (30:43.680)
new environments.
David Chalmers (30:44.960)
I guess for me, when I had these experiences,
Lex Fridman (30:47.440)
they were somewhat marginal.
David Chalmers (30:48.960)
They were like a little bonus kind of experience.
Lex Fridman (30:51.640)
I know there are people who have much more serious forms
David Chalmers (30:55.120)
of synesthesia than this for whom it's absolutely central
Lex Fridman (30:58.800)
to their lives.
David Chalmers (30:59.640)
I know people who, when they experience new people,
Lex Fridman (31:01.800)
they have colors, maybe they have tastes and so on.
David Chalmers (31:04.760)
Every time they see writing, it has colors.
Lex Fridman (31:08.320)
Some people, whenever they hear music,
David Chalmers (31:09.640)
it's got a certain really rich color pattern.
Lex Fridman (31:15.040)
For some synesthetes, it's absolutely central.
David Chalmers (31:17.440)
I think if they lost it, they'd be devastated.
Lex Fridman (31:20.200)
Again, for me, it was a very, very mild form
David Chalmers (31:23.760)
of synesthesia, and it's like, yeah,
Lex Fridman (31:25.560)
it's like those interesting experiences
David Chalmers (31:29.440)
you might get under different altered states
Lex Fridman (31:31.560)
of consciousness and so on.
David Chalmers (31:33.360)
It's kind of cool, but not necessarily
Lex Fridman (31:36.200)
the single most important experiences in your life.
David Chalmers (31:39.280)
Got it.
Lex Fridman (31:40.120)
So let's try to go to the very simplest question
David Chalmers (31:43.920)
that you've answered many a time,
Lex Fridman (31:45.120)
but perhaps the simplest things can help us reveal,
David Chalmers (31:48.560)
even in time, some new ideas.
Lex Fridman (31:51.680)
So what, in your view, is consciousness?
Lex Fridman (31:55.640)
What is qualia?
Lex Fridman (31:56.840)
What is the hard problem of consciousness?
David Chalmers (32:00.680)
Consciousness, I mean, the word is used many ways,
Lex Fridman (32:03.360)
but the kind of consciousness that I'm interested in
David Chalmers (32:06.240)
is basically subjective experience,
Lex Fridman (32:10.000)
what it feels like from the inside to be a human being
David Chalmers (32:14.360)
or any other conscious being.
Lex Fridman (32:16.160)
I mean, there's something it's like to be me right now.
David Chalmers (32:19.720)
I have visual images that I'm experiencing.
Lex Fridman (32:23.520)
I'm hearing my voice.
David Chalmers (32:25.600)
I've got maybe some emotional tone.
Lex Fridman (32:29.120)
I've got a stream of thoughts running through my head.
David Chalmers (32:31.640)
These are all things that I experience
Lex Fridman (32:33.600)
from the first person point of view.
David Chalmers (32:36.240)
I've sometimes called this the inner movie in the mind.
Lex Fridman (32:39.120)
It's not a perfect metaphor.
David Chalmers (32:41.600)
It's not like a movie in every way,
Lex Fridman (32:44.200)
and it's very rich.
Lex Fridman (32:45.640)
But yeah, it's just direct, subjective experience.
Lex Fridman (32:49.360)
And I call that consciousness,
David Chalmers (32:51.360)
or sometimes philosophers use the word qualia,
Lex Fridman (32:54.600)
which you suggested.
David Chalmers (32:55.480)
People tend to use the word qualia
Lex Fridman (32:57.040)
for things like the qualities of things like colors,
David Chalmers (33:00.400)
redness, the experience of redness
Lex Fridman (33:02.280)
versus the experience of greenness,
David Chalmers (33:04.640)
the experience of one taste or one smell versus another,
Lex Fridman (33:08.800)
the experience of the quality of pain.
Lex Fridman (33:10.920)
And yeah, a lot of consciousness
Lex Fridman (33:12.680)
is the experience of those qualities.
David Chalmers (33:17.000)
Well, consciousness is bigger,
Lex Fridman (33:18.240)
the entirety of any kinds of experiences.
David Chalmers (33:21.040)
Consciousness of thinking is not obviously qualia.
Lex Fridman (33:23.880)
It's not like specific qualities like redness or greenness,
Lex Fridman (33:26.440)
but still I'm thinking about my hometown.
Lex Fridman (33:29.200)
I'm thinking about what I'm gonna do later on.
David Chalmers (33:31.680)
Maybe there's still something running through my head,
Lex Fridman (33:34.160)
which is subjective experience.
David Chalmers (33:36.320)
Maybe it goes beyond those qualities or qualia.
Lex Fridman (33:39.960)
Philosophers sometimes use the word phenomenal consciousness
David Chalmers (33:43.000)
for consciousness in this sense.
Lex Fridman (33:44.680)
I mean, people also talk about access consciousness,
David Chalmers (33:47.480)
being able to access information in your mind,
Lex Fridman (33:50.280)
reflective consciousness,
David Chalmers (33:52.080)
being able to think about yourself.
Lex Fridman (33:53.920)
But it looks like the really mysterious one,
David Chalmers (33:55.920)
the one that really gets people going
Lex Fridman (33:57.240)
is phenomenal consciousness.
David Chalmers (33:58.880)
The fact that there's subjective experience
Lex Fridman (34:02.760)
and all this feels like something at all.
Lex Fridman (34:05.120)
And then the hard problem is how is it that,
Lex Fridman (34:08.880)
why is it that there is phenomenal consciousness at all?
Lex Fridman (34:11.520)
And how is it that physical processes in a brain
Lex Fridman (34:15.600)
could give you subjective experience?
David Chalmers (34:19.400)
It looks like on the face of it,
Lex Fridman (34:21.680)
you'd have all this big complicated physical system
David Chalmers (34:23.920)
in a brain running without a given
Lex Fridman (34:27.240)
subjective experience at all.
Lex Fridman (34:28.480)
And yet we do have subjective experience.
Lex Fridman (34:30.840)
So the hard problem is just explain that.
David Chalmers (34:34.160)
Explain how that comes about.
Lex Fridman (34:35.960)
We haven't been able to build machines
David Chalmers (34:37.560)
where a red light goes on that says it's not conscious.
Lex Fridman (34:41.320)
So how do we actually create that?
Lex Fridman (34:45.720)
Or how do humans do it?
Lex Fridman (34:47.360)
And how do we ourselves do it?
David Chalmers (34:49.000)
We do every now and then create machines that can do this.
Lex Fridman (34:51.720)
We create babies that are conscious.
David Chalmers (34:55.600)
They've got these brains.
Lex Fridman (34:56.560)
That brain does produce consciousness.
Lex Fridman (34:58.440)
But even though we can create it,
Lex Fridman (35:00.680)
we still don't understand why it happens.
David Chalmers (35:02.880)
Maybe eventually we'll be able to create machines,
Lex Fridman (35:05.440)
which as a matter of fact, AI machines,
David Chalmers (35:07.840)
which as a matter of fact are conscious.
Lex Fridman (35:10.280)
But that won't necessarily make the hard problem go away
David Chalmers (35:13.760)
any more than it does with babies.
Lex Fridman (35:15.480)
Cause we still wanna know how and why is it
Lex Fridman (35:17.480)
that these processes give you consciousness?
Lex Fridman (35:19.680)
You just made me realize for a second,
David Chalmers (35:22.160)
maybe it's a totally dumb realization, but nevertheless,
Lex Fridman (35:28.520)
that as a useful way to think about
David Chalmers (35:31.840)
the creation of consciousness is looking at a baby.
Lex Fridman (35:35.760)
So that there's a certain point
David Chalmers (35:38.480)
at which that baby is not conscious.
Lex Fridman (35:44.400)
The baby starts from maybe, I don't know,
Lex Fridman (35:47.160)
from a few cells, right?
Lex Fridman (35:49.600)
There's a certain point at which it becomes consciousness,
David Chalmers (35:52.760)
arrives, it's conscious.
Lex Fridman (35:54.920)
Of course, we can't know exactly that line,
Lex Fridman (35:56.880)
but that's a useful idea that we do create consciousness.
Lex Fridman (36:02.280)
Again, a really dumb thing for me to say,
Lex Fridman (36:04.560)
but not until now did I realize
Lex Fridman (36:07.000)
we do engineer consciousness.
David Chalmers (36:09.640)
We get to watch the process happen.
Lex Fridman (36:12.240)
We don't know which point it happens or where it is,
Lex Fridman (36:16.200)
but we do see the birth of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (36:19.200)
Yeah, I mean, there's a question, of course,
David Chalmers (36:21.080)
is whether babies are conscious when they're born.
Lex Fridman (36:25.000)
And it used to be, it seems,
David Chalmers (36:26.320)
at least some people thought they weren't,
Lex Fridman (36:28.240)
which is why they didn't give anesthetics
David Chalmers (36:30.520)
to newborn babies when they circumcised them.
Lex Fridman (36:33.160)
And so now people think, oh, that would be incredibly cruel.
David Chalmers (36:36.600)
Of course, babies feel pain.
Lex Fridman (36:38.760)
And now the dominant view is that the babies can feel pain.
David Chalmers (36:42.120)
Actually, my partner Claudia works on this whole issue
Lex Fridman (36:45.840)
of whether there's consciousness in babies
Lex Fridman (36:48.160)
and of what kind.
Lex Fridman (36:49.720)
And she certainly thinks that newborn babies
David Chalmers (36:53.280)
come into the world with some degree of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (36:55.480)
Of course, then you can just extend the question backwards
David Chalmers (36:57.320)
to fetuses and suddenly you're into
Lex Fridman (36:59.320)
politically controversial territory.
Lex Fridman (37:02.120)
But the question also arises in the animal kingdom.
Lex Fridman (37:06.840)
Where does consciousness start or stop?
David Chalmers (37:08.640)
Is there a line in the animal kingdom
Lex Fridman (37:11.960)
where the first conscious organisms are?
David Chalmers (37:15.920)
It's interesting, over time,
Lex Fridman (37:16.920)
people are becoming more and more liberal
David Chalmers (37:18.240)
about ascribing consciousness to animals.
Lex Fridman (37:21.080)
People used to think maybe only mammals could be conscious.
David Chalmers (37:24.520)
Now most people seem to think, sure, fish are conscious.
Lex Fridman (37:27.440)
They can feel pain.
Lex Fridman (37:28.760)
And now we're arguing over insects.
Lex Fridman (37:31.000)
You'll find people out there who say plants
David Chalmers (37:33.440)
have some degree of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (37:35.600)
So, you know, who knows where it's gonna end.
David Chalmers (37:37.840)
The far end of this chain is the view
Lex Fridman (37:39.360)
that every physical system has some degree of consciousness.
David Chalmers (37:43.320)
Philosophers call that panpsychism.
Lex Fridman (37:45.960)
You know, I take that view.
David Chalmers (37:48.320)
I mean, that's a fascinating way to view reality.
Lex Fridman (37:50.920)
So if you could talk about,
David Chalmers (37:52.840)
if you can linger on panpsychism for a little bit,
Lex Fridman (37:56.520)
what does it mean?
Lex Fridman (37:58.400)
So it's not just plants are conscious.
Lex Fridman (38:00.960)
I mean, it's that consciousness
David Chalmers (38:02.480)
is a fundamental fabric of reality.
Lex Fridman (38:05.360)
What does that mean to you?
Lex Fridman (38:07.360)
How are we supposed to think about that?
Lex Fridman (38:09.640)
Well, we're used to the idea that some things in the world
David Chalmers (38:12.120)
are fundamental, right, in physics.
Lex Fridman (38:15.240)
Like what?
David Chalmers (38:16.080)
We take things like space or time or space time,
Lex Fridman (38:18.800)
mass, charges, fundamental properties of the universe.
David Chalmers (38:23.120)
You don't reduce them to something simpler.
Lex Fridman (38:25.440)
You take those for granted.
David Chalmers (38:26.920)
You've got some laws that connect them.
Lex Fridman (38:30.120)
Here is how mass and space and time evolve.
David Chalmers (38:33.800)
Theories like relativity or quantum mechanics
Lex Fridman (38:36.600)
or some future theory that will unify them both.
Lex Fridman (38:39.960)
But everyone says you gotta take some things as fundamental.
Lex Fridman (38:42.520)
And if you can't explain one thing,
David Chalmers (38:44.600)
in terms of the previous fundamental things,
Lex Fridman (38:47.120)
you have to expand.
David Chalmers (38:49.240)
Maybe something like this happened with Maxwell.
Lex Fridman (38:52.800)
He ended up with fundamental principles
David Chalmers (38:54.160)
of electromagnetism and took charge as fundamental
Lex Fridman (38:57.480)
because it turned out that was the best way to explain it.
Lex Fridman (39:00.120)
So I at least take seriously the possibility
Lex Fridman (39:02.840)
something like that could happen with consciousness.
David Chalmers (39:06.080)
Take it as a fundamental property,
Lex Fridman (39:07.600)
like space, time, and mass.
Lex Fridman (39:10.120)
And instead of trying to explain consciousness wholly
Lex Fridman (39:13.760)
in terms of the evolution of space, time, and mass,
Lex Fridman (39:17.480)
and so on, take it as a primitive
Lex Fridman (39:20.000)
and then connect it to everything else
David Chalmers (39:23.000)
by some fundamental laws.
Lex Fridman (39:25.200)
Because there's this basic problem
David Chalmers (39:27.120)
that the physics we have now looks great
Lex Fridman (39:29.080)
for solving the easy problems of consciousness,
David Chalmers (39:31.800)
which are all about behavior.
Lex Fridman (39:35.280)
They give us a complicated structure and dynamics.
David Chalmers (39:37.440)
They tell us how things are gonna behave,
Lex Fridman (39:39.640)
what kind of observable behavior they'll produce,
David Chalmers (39:43.160)
which is great for the problems of explaining how we walk
Lex Fridman (39:46.400)
and how we talk and so on.
David Chalmers (39:48.600)
Those are the easy problems of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (39:50.640)
But the hard problem was this problem
David Chalmers (39:52.560)
about subjective experience just doesn't look
Lex Fridman (39:55.360)
like that kind of problem about structure,
David Chalmers (39:57.000)
dynamics, how things behave.
Lex Fridman (39:58.800)
So it's hard to see how existing physics
David Chalmers (40:01.320)
is gonna give you a full explanation of that.
Lex Fridman (40:04.680)
Certainly trying to get a physics view of consciousness,
David Chalmers (40:08.000)
yes, there has to be a connecting point
Lex Fridman (40:10.960)
and it could be at the very axiomatic
David Chalmers (40:12.600)
at the very beginning level.
Lex Fridman (40:14.120)
But first of all, there's a crazy idea
David Chalmers (40:21.960)
that sort of everything has properties of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (40:27.640)
At that point, the word consciousness
David Chalmers (40:30.080)
is already beyond the reach of our current understanding.
Lex Fridman (40:33.000)
Like far, because it's so far from,
David Chalmers (40:35.800)
at least for me, maybe you can correct me,
Lex Fridman (40:38.760)
as far from the experiences that I have as a human being.
David Chalmers (40:45.680)
To say that everything is conscious,
Lex Fridman (40:47.360)
that means that basically another way to put that,
David Chalmers (40:52.840)
if that's true, then we understand almost nothing
Lex Fridman (40:56.840)
about that fundamental aspect of the world.
Lex Fridman (41:00.120)
How do you feel about saying an ant is conscious?
Lex Fridman (41:02.760)
Do you get the same reaction to that
Lex Fridman (41:04.040)
or is that something you can understand?
Lex Fridman (41:05.760)
I can understand ant,
David Chalmers (41:06.880)
I can understand an atom, a particle.
Lex Fridman (41:10.680)
Plants?
David Chalmers (41:12.120)
Plant, so I'm comfortable with living things on Earth
Lex Fridman (41:16.640)
being conscious because there's some kind of agency
David Chalmers (41:22.040)
where they're similar size to me
Lex Fridman (41:26.480)
and they can be born and they can die.
Lex Fridman (41:30.800)
And that is understandable intuitively.
Lex Fridman (41:34.400)
Of course, you anthropomorphize,
David Chalmers (41:36.720)
you put yourself in the place of the plant,
Lex Fridman (41:41.720)
but I can understand it.
David Chalmers (41:43.240)
I mean, I'm not like, I don't believe actually
Lex Fridman (41:47.600)
that plants are conscious or that plants suffer,
Lex Fridman (41:49.600)
but I can understand that kind of belief, that kind of idea.
Lex Fridman (41:52.960)
How do you feel about robots?
Lex Fridman (41:54.920)
Like the kind of robots we have now?
Lex Fridman (41:56.760)
If I told you like that a Roomba
David Chalmers (41:58.880)
had some degree of consciousness
Lex Fridman (42:02.280)
or some deep neural network.
David Chalmers (42:06.120)
I could understand that a Roomba has consciousness.
Lex Fridman (42:08.440)
I just had spent all day at I, robot.
Lex Fridman (42:12.600)
And I mean, I personally love robots
Lex Fridman (42:15.200)
and I have a deep connection with robots.
Lex Fridman (42:16.960)
So I can, I also probably anthropomorphize them.
Lex Fridman (42:20.040)
There's something about the physical object.
Lex Fridman (42:23.880)
So there's a difference than a neural network,
Lex Fridman (42:26.800)
a neural network running a software.
David Chalmers (42:28.960)
To me, the physical object,
Lex Fridman (42:31.040)
something about the human experience
David Chalmers (42:32.680)
allows me to really see that physical object as an entity.
Lex Fridman (42:36.920)
And if it moves and moves in a way that it,
David Chalmers (42:40.920)
there's a, like I didn't program it,
Lex Fridman (42:44.400)
where it feels that it's acting based on its own perception.
Lex Fridman (42:49.680)
And yes, self awareness and consciousness,
Lex Fridman (42:53.440)
even if it's a Roomba,
David Chalmers (42:55.440)
then you start to assign it some agency, some consciousness.
Lex Fridman (43:00.440)
So, but to say that panpsychism,
David Chalmers (43:03.800)
that consciousness is a fundamental property of reality
Lex Fridman (43:08.440)
is a much bigger statement.
David Chalmers (43:11.360)
That it's like turtles all the way.
Lex Fridman (43:13.600)
It's like every, it's, it doesn't end.
David Chalmers (43:16.080)
The whole thing is, so like how,
Lex Fridman (43:18.360)
I know it's full of mystery,
Lex Fridman (43:21.120)
but if you can linger on it,
Lex Fridman (43:23.880)
like how would it, how do you think about reality
Lex Fridman (43:27.600)
if consciousness is a fundamental part of its fabric?
Lex Fridman (43:31.840)
The way you get there is from thinking,
Lex Fridman (43:33.300)
can we explain consciousness given the existing fundamentals?
Lex Fridman (43:36.520)
And then if you can't, as at least right now, it looks like,
David Chalmers (43:41.120)
then you've got to add something.
Lex Fridman (43:42.320)
It doesn't follow that you have to add consciousness.
David Chalmers (43:44.920)
Here's another interesting possibility is,
Lex Fridman (43:47.000)
well, we'll add something else.
David Chalmers (43:48.020)
Let's call it proto consciousness or X.
Lex Fridman (43:51.640)
And then it turns out space, time, mass plus X
David Chalmers (43:56.120)
will somehow collectively give you the possibility
Lex Fridman (43:58.920)
for consciousness.
Lex Fridman (44:00.200)
Why don't rule out that view?
Lex Fridman (44:01.780)
Either I call that pan proto psychism,
David Chalmers (44:04.760)
because maybe there's some other property,
Lex Fridman (44:06.240)
proto consciousness at the bottom level.
Lex Fridman (44:08.880)
And if you can't imagine there's actually
Lex Fridman (44:10.480)
genuine consciousness at the bottom level,
David Chalmers (44:12.800)
I think we should be open to the idea
Lex Fridman (44:14.100)
there's this other thing X.
David Chalmers (44:16.160)
Maybe we can't imagine that somehow gives you consciousness.
Lex Fridman (44:19.960)
But if we are playing along with the idea
David Chalmers (44:22.360)
that there really is genuine consciousness
Lex Fridman (44:24.320)
at the bottom level, of course,
David Chalmers (44:25.360)
this is going to be way out and speculative,
Lex Fridman (44:28.280)
but at least in, say, if it was classical physics,
David Chalmers (44:32.040)
then we'd have to, you'd end up saying,
Lex Fridman (44:33.480)
well, every little atom, every little,
David Chalmers (44:35.280)
with a bunch of particles in space time,
Lex Fridman (44:37.640)
each of these particles has some kind of consciousness
David Chalmers (44:41.560)
whose structure mirrors maybe their physical properties,
Lex Fridman (44:44.560)
like its mass, its charge, its velocity, and so on.
David Chalmers (44:49.080)
The structure of its consciousness
Lex Fridman (44:50.320)
would roughly correspond to that.
Lex Fridman (44:52.280)
And the physical interactions between particles,
Lex Fridman (44:55.440)
I mean, there's this old worry about physics.
David Chalmers (44:58.280)
I mentioned this before in this issue
Lex Fridman (44:59.560)
about the manifest image.
David Chalmers (45:01.120)
We don't really find out
Lex Fridman (45:02.080)
about the intrinsic nature of things.
David Chalmers (45:04.560)
Physics tells us about how a particle relates
Lex Fridman (45:07.440)
to other particles and interacts.
David Chalmers (45:09.320)
It doesn't tell us about what the particle is in itself.
Lex Fridman (45:12.840)
That was Kant's thing in itself.
Lex Fridman (45:14.600)
So here's a view.
Lex Fridman (45:17.880)
The nature in itself of a particle is something mental.
David Chalmers (45:20.840)
A particle is actually a conscious,
Lex Fridman (45:22.840)
a little conscious subject
David Chalmers (45:24.520)
with properties of its consciousness
Lex Fridman (45:27.320)
that correspond to its physical properties.
David Chalmers (45:29.160)
The laws of physics are actually ultimately relating
Lex Fridman (45:32.640)
these properties of conscious subjects.
Lex Fridman (45:34.560)
So in this view, a Newtonian world
Lex Fridman (45:36.640)
actually would be a vast collection
David Chalmers (45:38.200)
of little conscious subjects at the bottom level,
Lex Fridman (45:41.240)
way, way simpler than we are without free will
David Chalmers (45:44.960)
or rationality or anything like that.
Lex Fridman (45:47.280)
But that's what the universe would be like.
David Chalmers (45:48.800)
Now, of course, that's a vastly speculative view.
Lex Fridman (45:51.360)
No particular reason to think it's correct.
David Chalmers (45:53.600)
Furthermore, non Newtonian physics,
Lex Fridman (45:56.480)
say quantum mechanical wave function,
David Chalmers (45:58.960)
suddenly it starts to look different.
Lex Fridman (46:00.120)
It's not a vast collection of conscious subjects.
David Chalmers (46:02.600)
Maybe there's ultimately one big wave function
Lex Fridman (46:05.360)
for the whole universe.
David Chalmers (46:06.760)
Corresponding to that might be something more
Lex Fridman (46:08.440)
like a single conscious mind
David Chalmers (46:12.280)
whose structure corresponds
Lex Fridman (46:13.840)
to the structure of the wave function.
David Chalmers (46:16.280)
People sometimes call this cosmo psychism.
Lex Fridman (46:19.160)
And now, of course, we're in the realm
David Chalmers (46:20.880)
of extremely speculative philosophy.
Lex Fridman (46:23.200)
There's no direct evidence for this,
Lex Fridman (46:25.160)
but yeah, but if you want a picture
Lex Fridman (46:27.320)
of what that universe would be like,
David Chalmers (46:29.280)
think, yeah, giant cosmic mind
Lex Fridman (46:31.680)
with enough richness and structure among it
David Chalmers (46:33.920)
to replicate all the structure of physics.
Lex Fridman (46:36.520)
I think therefore I am at the level of particles
Lex Fridman (46:39.720)
and with quantum mechanics
Lex Fridman (46:40.960)
at the level of the wave function.
David Chalmers (46:42.640)
It's kind of an exciting, beautiful possibility,
Lex Fridman (46:49.440)
of course, way out of reach of physics currently.
David Chalmers (46:51.960)
It is interesting that some neuroscientists
Lex Fridman (46:55.040)
are beginning to take panpsychism seriously,
David Chalmers (46:58.680)
that you find consciousness even in very simple systems.
Lex Fridman (47:02.880)
So for example, the integrated information theory
David Chalmers (47:05.560)
of consciousness, a lot of neuroscientists
Lex Fridman (47:07.360)
are taking seriously.
David Chalmers (47:08.200)
Actually, I just got this new book
Lex Fridman (47:09.920)
by Christoph Koch just came in,
David Chalmers (47:11.720)
The Feeling of Life Itself,
Lex Fridman (47:13.680)
why consciousness is widespread, but can't be computed.
David Chalmers (47:17.200)
He likes, he basically endorses a panpsychist view
Lex Fridman (47:20.560)
where you get consciousness
David Chalmers (47:22.280)
with the degree of information processing
Lex Fridman (47:24.520)
or integrated information processing in a simple,
David Chalmers (47:26.960)
in a system and even very, very simple systems,
Lex Fridman (47:29.520)
like a couple of particles will have some degree of this.
Lex Fridman (47:32.720)
So he ends up with some degree of consciousness
Lex Fridman (47:35.240)
in all matter.
Lex Fridman (47:36.080)
And the claim is that this theory
Lex Fridman (47:38.680)
can actually explain a bunch of stuff
David Chalmers (47:40.520)
about the connection between the brain and consciousness.
Lex Fridman (47:43.600)
Now, that's very controversial.
David Chalmers (47:45.360)
I think it's very, very early days
Lex Fridman (47:46.920)
in the science of consciousness.
David Chalmers (47:48.120)
It's interesting that it's not just philosophy
Lex Fridman (47:50.840)
that might lead you in this direction,
Lex Fridman (47:52.680)
but there are ways of thinking quasi scientifically
Lex Fridman (47:55.280)
that lead you there too.
Lex Fridman (47:57.400)
But maybe it's different than panpsychism.
Lex Fridman (48:01.200)
What do you think?
Lex Fridman (48:02.040)
So Alan Watts has this quote that I'd like to ask you about.
Lex Fridman (48:06.960)
The quote is, through our eyes,
David Chalmers (48:10.440)
the universe is perceiving itself.
Lex Fridman (48:12.760)
Through our ears, the universe is listening
David Chalmers (48:14.640)
to its harmonies.
Lex Fridman (48:16.120)
We are the witnesses through which the universe
David Chalmers (48:18.040)
becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.
Lex Fridman (48:22.440)
So that's not panpsychism.
Lex Fridman (48:24.800)
Do you think that we are essentially the tools,
Lex Fridman (48:30.480)
the senses the universe created to be conscious of itself?
David Chalmers (48:35.480)
It's an interesting idea.
Lex Fridman (48:37.520)
Of course, if you went for the giant cosmic mind view,
David Chalmers (48:40.520)
then the universe was conscious all along.
Lex Fridman (48:43.360)
It didn't need us.
David Chalmers (48:44.200)
We're just little components of the universal consciousness.
Lex Fridman (48:48.120)
Likewise, if you believe in panpsychism,
David Chalmers (48:50.800)
then there was some little degree of consciousness
Lex Fridman (48:52.840)
at the bottom level all along.
Lex Fridman (48:54.680)
And we were just a more complex form of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (48:58.240)
So I think maybe the quote you mentioned works better.
David Chalmers (49:02.040)
If you're not a panpsychist, you're not a cosmo psychist,
Lex Fridman (49:05.120)
you think consciousness just exists
David Chalmers (49:07.240)
at this intermediate level.
Lex Fridman (49:09.360)
And of course, that's the Orthodox view.
Lex Fridman (49:12.320)
That you would say is the common view?
Lex Fridman (49:14.680)
So is your own view with panpsychism a rare view?
David Chalmers (49:19.880)
I think it's generally regarded certainly
Lex Fridman (49:22.160)
as a speculative view held by a fairly small minority
David Chalmers (49:26.480)
of at least theorists, most philosophers
Lex Fridman (49:30.000)
and most scientists who think about consciousness
David Chalmers (49:33.040)
are not panpsychists.
Lex Fridman (49:34.600)
There's been a bit of a movement in that direction
David Chalmers (49:36.240)
the last 10 years or so.
Lex Fridman (49:37.920)
It seems to be quite popular,
David Chalmers (49:38.960)
especially among the younger generation,
Lex Fridman (49:41.600)
but it's still very definitely a minority view.
David Chalmers (49:43.960)
Many people think it's totally batshit crazy
Lex Fridman (49:47.120)
to use the technical term.
Lex Fridman (49:48.320)
But the philosophical term.
Lex Fridman (49:51.360)
So the Orthodox view, I think is still consciousness
David Chalmers (49:53.400)
is something that humans have
Lex Fridman (49:55.160)
and some good number of nonhuman animals have,
Lex Fridman (49:59.000)
and maybe AIs might have one day, but it's restricted.
Lex Fridman (50:02.720)
On that view, then there was no consciousness
David Chalmers (50:04.400)
at the start of the universe.
Lex Fridman (50:05.840)
There may be none at the end,
Lex Fridman (50:07.200)
but it is this thing which happened at some point
Lex Fridman (50:09.920)
in the history of the universe, consciousness developed.
Lex Fridman (50:13.160)
And yes, that's a very amazing event on this view
Lex Fridman (50:17.440)
because many people are inclined to think consciousness
David Chalmers (50:20.280)
is what somehow gives meaning to our lives.
Lex Fridman (50:23.160)
Without consciousness, there'd be no meaning,
David Chalmers (50:25.760)
no true value, no good versus bad and so on.
Lex Fridman (50:29.720)
So with the advent of consciousness,
David Chalmers (50:32.200)
suddenly the universe went from meaningless
Lex Fridman (50:36.000)
to somehow meaningful.
Lex Fridman (50:38.760)
Why did this happen?
Lex Fridman (50:39.840)
I guess the quote you mentioned was somehow,
David Chalmers (50:42.200)
this was somehow destined to happen
Lex Fridman (50:44.360)
because the universe needed to have consciousness
David Chalmers (50:47.360)
within it to have value and have meaning.
Lex Fridman (50:49.280)
And maybe you could combine that with a theistic view
David Chalmers (50:52.680)
or a teleological view.
Lex Fridman (50:54.640)
The universe was inexorably evolving towards consciousness.
David Chalmers (50:58.440)
Actually, my colleague here at NYU, Tom Nagel,
Lex Fridman (51:01.440)
wrote a book called Mind and Cosmos a few years ago
David Chalmers (51:04.200)
where he argued for this teleological view
Lex Fridman (51:06.080)
of evolution toward consciousness,
David Chalmers (51:09.040)
saying this led the problems for Darwinism.
Lex Fridman (51:12.640)
It's got him on, this is very, very controversial.
David Chalmers (51:15.120)
Most people didn't agree.
Lex Fridman (51:16.640)
I don't myself agree with this teleological view,
Lex Fridman (51:20.080)
but it is at least a beautiful speculative view
Lex Fridman (51:24.120)
of the cosmos.
Lex Fridman (51:26.160)
What do you think people experience?
Lex Fridman (51:30.640)
What do they seek when they believe in God
Lex Fridman (51:32.920)
from this kind of perspective?
Lex Fridman (51:36.200)
I'm not an expert on thinking about God and religion.
David Chalmers (51:41.440)
I'm not myself religious at all.
Lex Fridman (51:43.880)
When people sort of pray, communicate with God,
David Chalmers (51:46.720)
which whatever form,
Lex Fridman (51:48.120)
I'm not speaking to sort of the practices
Lex Fridman (51:51.640)
and the rituals of religion.
Lex Fridman (51:53.800)
I mean the actual experience of that people
David Chalmers (51:56.960)
really have a deep connection with God in some cases.
Lex Fridman (52:00.920)
What do you think that experience is?
David Chalmers (52:06.280)
It's so common, at least throughout the history
Lex Fridman (52:08.680)
of civilization, that it seems like we seek that.
David Chalmers (52:16.360)
At the very least, it is an interesting
Lex Fridman (52:17.960)
conscious experience that people have
David Chalmers (52:19.600)
when they experience religious awe or prayer and so on.
Lex Fridman (52:24.600)
Neuroscientists have tried to examine
Lex Fridman (52:27.200)
what bits of the brain are active and so on.
Lex Fridman (52:30.160)
But yeah, there's this deeper question
Lex Fridman (52:32.120)
of what are people looking for when they're doing this?
Lex Fridman (52:34.800)
And like I said, I've got no real expertise on this,
Lex Fridman (52:38.440)
but it does seem that one thing people are after
Lex Fridman (52:40.920)
is a sense of meaning and value,
David Chalmers (52:43.240)
a sense of connection to something greater than themselves
Lex Fridman (52:48.160)
that will give their lives meaning and value.
Lex Fridman (52:50.280)
And maybe the thought is if there is a God,
Lex Fridman (52:52.600)
then God somehow is a universal consciousness
David Chalmers (52:56.120)
who has invested this universe with meaning
Lex Fridman (53:01.080)
and somehow connection to God might give your life meaning.
David Chalmers (53:05.680)
I guess I can kind of see the attractions of that,
Lex Fridman (53:09.840)
but it still makes me wonder why is it exactly
David Chalmers (53:13.000)
that a universal consciousness, God,
Lex Fridman (53:15.920)
would be needed to give the world meaning?
David Chalmers (53:18.480)
If universal consciousness can give the world meaning,
Lex Fridman (53:21.760)
why can't local consciousness give the world meaning too?
Lex Fridman (53:25.280)
So I think my consciousness gives my world meaning.
Lex Fridman (53:28.480)
Is the origin of meaning for your world.
David Chalmers (53:31.080)
Yeah, I experience things as good or bad,
Lex Fridman (53:33.840)
happy, sad, interesting, important.
Lex Fridman (53:37.480)
So my consciousness invests this world with meaning.
Lex Fridman (53:40.560)
Without any consciousness,
David Chalmers (53:42.160)
maybe it would be a bleak, meaningless universe.
Lex Fridman (53:45.320)
But I don't see why I need someone else's consciousness
David Chalmers (53:47.680)
or even God's consciousness to give this universe meaning.
Lex Fridman (53:51.480)
Here we are, local creatures
David Chalmers (53:53.160)
with our own subjective experiences.
Lex Fridman (53:55.160)
I think we can give the universe meaning ourselves.
David Chalmers (53:58.920)
I mean, maybe to some people that feels inadequate.
Lex Fridman (54:02.000)
Our own local consciousness is somehow too puny
Lex Fridman (54:04.920)
and insignificant to invest any of this
Lex Fridman (54:07.320)
with cosmic significance.
Lex Fridman (54:09.320)
And maybe God gives you a sense of cosmic significance,
Lex Fridman (54:13.680)
but I'm just speculating here.
Lex Fridman (54:15.720)
So it's a really interesting idea
Lex Fridman (54:19.280)
that consciousness is the thing that makes life meaningful.
David Chalmers (54:24.800)
If you could maybe just briefly explore that for a second.
Lex Fridman (54:30.400)
So I suspect just from listening to you now,
David Chalmers (54:33.760)
you mean in an almost trivial sense,
Lex Fridman (54:37.400)
just the day to day experiences of life have,
David Chalmers (54:42.320)
because of you attach identity to it,
Lex Fridman (54:46.920)
they become, I guess I wanna ask something
David Chalmers (54:54.600)
I would always wanted to ask
Lex Fridman (54:57.120)
a legit world renowned philosopher.
Lex Fridman (55:01.920)
What is the meaning of life?
Lex Fridman (55:05.200)
So I suspect you don't mean consciousness gives
David Chalmers (55:08.080)
any kind of greater meaning to it all.
Lex Fridman (55:11.280)
And more to day to day.
Lex Fridman (55:13.360)
But is there a greater meaning to it all?
Lex Fridman (55:16.240)
I think life has meaning for us because we are conscious.
Lex Fridman (55:20.920)
So without consciousness, no meaning,
Lex Fridman (55:24.120)
consciousness invests our life with meaning.
Lex Fridman (55:27.280)
So consciousness is the source of the meaning of life,
Lex Fridman (55:30.680)
but I wouldn't say consciousness itself
David Chalmers (55:33.320)
is the meaning of life.
Lex Fridman (55:34.760)
I'd say what's meaningful in life
David Chalmers (55:36.960)
is basically what we find meaningful,
Lex Fridman (55:40.000)
what we experience as meaningful.
Lex Fridman (55:42.640)
So if you find meaning and fulfillment and value
Lex Fridman (55:46.280)
in say, intellectual work, like understanding,
David Chalmers (55:49.080)
then that's a very significant part
Lex Fridman (55:51.720)
of the meaning of life for you.
David Chalmers (55:53.200)
If you find that in social connections
Lex Fridman (55:55.680)
or in raising a family,
David Chalmers (55:57.400)
then that's the meaning of life for you.
Lex Fridman (55:58.960)
The meaning kind of comes from what you value
David Chalmers (56:02.080)
as a conscious creature.
Lex Fridman (56:04.040)
So I think there's no, on this view,
David Chalmers (56:05.280)
there's no universal solution.
Lex Fridman (56:08.640)
No universal answer to the question,
Lex Fridman (56:10.160)
what is the meaning of life?
Lex Fridman (56:11.480)
The meaning of life is where you find it
David Chalmers (56:13.520)
as a conscious creature,
Lex Fridman (56:14.600)
but it's consciousness that somehow makes value possible.
David Chalmers (56:18.040)
Experiencing some things as good or as bad
Lex Fridman (56:21.000)
or as meaningful,
David Chalmers (56:22.840)
something comes from within consciousness.
Lex Fridman (56:24.600)
So you think consciousness is a crucial component,
Lex Fridman (56:28.760)
ingredient of assigning value to things?
Lex Fridman (56:33.520)
I mean, it's kind of a fairly strong intuition
David Chalmers (56:36.080)
that without consciousness,
Lex Fridman (56:37.520)
there wouldn't really be any value
David Chalmers (56:39.920)
if we just had a purely universe of unconscious creatures.
Lex Fridman (56:44.600)
Would anything be better or worse than anything else?
David Chalmers (56:47.680)
Certainly when it comes to ethical dilemmas,
Lex Fridman (56:50.320)
you know about the old trolley problem.
Lex Fridman (56:53.160)
Do you kill one person
Lex Fridman (56:56.240)
or do you switch to the other track to kill five?
David Chalmers (56:59.600)
Well, I've got a variant on this,
Lex Fridman (57:01.680)
the zombie trolley problem,
David Chalmers (57:03.440)
where there's a one conscious being on one track
Lex Fridman (57:06.720)
and five humanoid zombies.
David Chalmers (57:09.120)
Let's make them robots who are not conscious
Lex Fridman (57:12.880)
on the other track.
Lex Fridman (57:15.520)
Do you, given that choice,
Lex Fridman (57:16.640)
do you kill the one conscious being
Lex Fridman (57:17.920)
or the five unconscious robots?
Lex Fridman (57:21.040)
Most people have a fairly clear intuition here.
David Chalmers (57:23.360)
Kill the unconscious beings
Lex Fridman (57:25.560)
because they basically, they don't have a meaningful life.
David Chalmers (57:28.720)
They're not really persons, conscious beings at all.
Lex Fridman (57:33.760)
We don't have good intuition
David Chalmers (57:36.640)
about something like an unconscious being.
Lex Fridman (57:42.040)
So in philosophical terms, you referred to as a zombie.
David Chalmers (57:46.720)
It's a useful thought experiment construction
Lex Fridman (57:51.120)
in philosophical terms, but we don't yet have them.
Lex Fridman (57:55.880)
So that's kind of what we may be able to create with robots.
Lex Fridman (58:00.240)
And I don't necessarily know what that even means.
David Chalmers (58:05.240)
Yeah, they're merely hypothetical.
Lex Fridman (58:07.280)
For now, they're just a thought experiment.
David Chalmers (58:09.640)
They may never be possible.
Lex Fridman (58:11.040)
I mean, the extreme case of a zombie
David Chalmers (58:13.480)
is a being which is physically, functionally,
Lex Fridman (58:16.400)
behaviorally identical to me, but not conscious.
David Chalmers (58:19.520)
That's a mere,
Lex Fridman (58:20.560)
I don't think that could ever be built in this universe.
David Chalmers (58:23.520)
The question is just could we,
Lex Fridman (58:24.840)
does that hypothetically make sense?
David Chalmers (58:27.000)
That's kind of a useful contrast class
Lex Fridman (58:29.360)
to raise questions like, why aren't we zombies?
Lex Fridman (58:31.800)
How does it come about that we're conscious?
Lex Fridman (58:33.840)
And we're not like that.
Lex Fridman (58:34.960)
But there are less extreme versions of this like robots,
Lex Fridman (58:38.640)
which are maybe not physically identical to us,
David Chalmers (58:41.560)
maybe not even functionally identical to us.
Lex Fridman (58:43.360)
Maybe they've got a different architecture,
Lex Fridman (58:45.360)
but they can do a lot of sophisticated things,
Lex Fridman (58:47.720)
maybe carry on a conversation, but they're not conscious.
Lex Fridman (58:51.160)
And that's not so far out.
Lex Fridman (58:52.160)
We've got simple computer systems,
David Chalmers (58:54.920)
at least tending in that direction now.
Lex Fridman (58:57.400)
And presumably this is gonna get more and more sophisticated
David Chalmers (59:01.120)
over years to come where we may have some pretty,
Lex Fridman (59:05.320)
it's at least quite straightforward to conceive
David Chalmers (59:07.240)
of some pretty sophisticated robot systems
Lex Fridman (59:11.160)
that can use language and be fairly high functioning
David Chalmers (59:14.800)
without consciousness at all.
Lex Fridman (59:16.400)
Then I stipulate that.
David Chalmers (59:17.800)
I mean, we've caused, there's this tricky question
Lex Fridman (59:21.600)
of how you would know whether they're conscious.
Lex Fridman (59:23.680)
But let's say we've somehow solved that.
Lex Fridman (59:25.000)
And we know that these high functioning robots
David Chalmers (59:27.120)
aren't conscious.
Lex Fridman (59:27.960)
Then the question is, do they have moral status?
Lex Fridman (59:30.240)
Does it matter how we treat them?
Lex Fridman (59:33.480)
What does moral status mean, sir?
David Chalmers (59:35.760)
Basically it's that question.
Lex Fridman (59:37.160)
Can they suffer?
Lex Fridman (59:38.480)
Does it matter how we treat them?
Lex Fridman (59:41.040)
For example, if I mistreat this glass, this cup
David Chalmers (59:46.040)
by shattering it, then that's bad.
Lex Fridman (59:49.760)
Why is it bad though?
David Chalmers (59:50.600)
It's gonna make a mess.
Lex Fridman (59:51.440)
It's gonna be annoying for me and my partner.
Lex Fridman (59:53.600)
And so it's not bad for the cup.
Lex Fridman (59:55.920)
No one would say the cup itself has moral status.
David Chalmers (59:59.560)
Hey, you hurt the cup and that's doing it a moral harm.
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